Visa-Less Journalists Visiting Miami Risk Jail Nightmare

Non-American music journalists attending next month's Miami Winter Music Conference could find themselves being locked up and deported if they fail to get a working visa in advance.

"You must apply for a United States visa if you ... are a professional journalist planning to cover news or informational stories," the newly revised application rules declare.

"(Or if you) have a criminal record; are a drug addict . . . and if you were or still are a member of a subversive or terrorist organisation."

The matter was highlight by The Observer who warned that visa-less writers covering the Oscars could be treated the same as one unfortunate Australian music journalist who was detained for 15 hours recently after US immigration officials discovered she was planning to interview Olivia Newton John.

The paper said even journalists on holiday are no longer allowed to file stories under the new rules, suggesting careless Miami writers could easily find themselves locked up. And for any hacks detained for more than a day, the punishment could prove horrific, according to Human Rights Watch.

"When a new inmate enters an open barracks prison it triggers a sort of competition among the convicts as to who will seduce and subjugate that new arrival," says testimony from one prisoner on the civil rights group's website.

"Every new arrival is a potential victim. Unless the new arrival is strong, ugly, and efficient at violence, they are subject to get seduced, coerced, or raped."

Notorious club killer Michael Alig was one such victim, according to Village Voice writer Frank Owen, whose book on New York nightlife Clubland Confidential contain a graphic description of what happened to the Party Monster promoter, when he was first incarcerated in Riker's Island prison.

"Upon admission, four gangbangers (gang members) savagely beat him because they thought he was on the phone too long," said Owen.

"Alig was also (later) raped several times by a member of the heretical Islamic Street sect known as the Five Percent Nation which literally believes whites are the devil incarnate.For a while, Alig became the rapist's 'bitch'."
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