Iraq

Iraqi authorities have vowed to hunt down the killers of journalists, days after the head of the country's biggest journalist organisation became the latest media worker to meet a violent death, Reuters has reported. The interior ministry said 270 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called...

The Iraqi press has once again paid dearly for its commitment to more freedom — the head of the country's largest journalists organisation died on Wednesday, four days after being seriously wounded by gunmen who fired at his car in Baghdad. Jabbar Tarrad al-Shimmari, deputy head of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that al-Tamimi, 74

The Iraqi Government has promised to shortly issue a full report on targeting and killings of journalists since the invasion of the country five years ago. More than 250 journalists and media staff have died since 2003 says the IFJ-affiliated Iraqi Union of Journalists. With a media killing every five days over the past two years casualties in Iraq have pushed the global death toll of journalists...

The US military is to finally bring a court hearing against Associated Press (AP) photographer Bilal Hussein on December 9, 606 days after the Iraqi was first taken into custody, the agency has reported. The move would be the first legal step in initiating formal charges against Hussein, who was seized in Ramadi on April 12, 2006. A public affairs officer had notified AP last week that the...

A journalist’s claim that 11 of his close relatives were murdered in Iraq last weekend is false. Amman-based Iraqi journalist Dia al-Kawwaz had claimed on November 26 that 11 members of his immediate family were shot by gunmen the previous day in Baghdad. “We are obviously relieved to learn that the Kawwaz family is safe and sound but this journalist’s behaviour is unacceptable,” Reporters

Supporters of Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, who has been held without charge by U.S. officials in Iraq for 18 months, marked the year-and-a-half anniversary Friday by presenting an online petition with 1,500 signatures to several top federal officials, organizers said. In a letter faxed Friday to the White House, U.S. State Department, the Speaker of the House of Representatives...

A journalist’s claim that 11 of his close relatives were murdered in Iraq last weekend is false. Amman-based Iraqi journalist Dia al-Kawwaz had claimed on November 26 that 11 members of his immediate family were shot by gunmen the previous day in Baghdad. “We are obviously relieved to learn that the Kawwaz family is safe and sound but this journalist’s behaviour is unacceptable,” Reporters sans...

BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi journalist Wednesday challenged government denials that 11 of his relatives were slaughtered in their Baghdad home, urging authorities to show that his claim was false by letting "all my family appear on television." Dhia al-Kawaz, editor of the Jordan-based Aswat al-Iraq news agency, had said masked gunmen stormed the family home and killed two of his sisters, their...

Baghdad - Unidentified gunmen murdered 11 family members of an Iraqi journalist in east Baghdad, independent Voices of Iraq reported Monday citing a statement by the Iraqi committee to protect journalists. About seven armed men in a civilian car broke into the house of Diyaa al-Wakaz Sunday, shooting dead all his family members including his wife and children, witnesses said. Al-Wakaz, who...

Nov. 26, 2007 · The U.S. military continues to refuse to release any evidence against an AP photojournalist, even as they plan to bring criminal charges against him. The military first took Bilal Hussein, a member of the AP’s 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning photo team, into custody in April of 2006 when Hussein provided shelter for several strangers after hearing an explosion on a nearby street in...