Iraq

NEW YORK - The U.S. military has been holding an Iraqi photographer working for The Associated Press since April, and the agency asked Sunday that he either be charged or released. Bilal Hussein, 35, was taken into U.S. military custody on April 12 in the Iraqi city of Ramadi and has been held since then without charge, AP said. “Bilal Hussein has been held in violation of Iraqi law and in...

New York, September 13, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder of an Iraqi photographer today in Baghdad and a journalist in Diyala province yesterday by unidentified gunmen. Safa Isma’il Enad, 31, a freelance photographer for several outlets including the now-defunct newspaper Al-Watan, was shot in a photo print shop in Baghdad’s Ur neighborhood, according to the...

TIKRIT, Iraq - An Iraqi journalist for a mass-selling Arabic language newspaper said she was released Wednesday after being arrested for allegedly helping insurgents. Kalshan al-Bayati, 33, of the London daily Al-Hayat, was arrested two days ago at her home in Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, about 180 kilometres (110 miles) north of Baghdad. "They released me," Bayati said on Wednesday. "I...

NEW YORK/LONDON (Hollywood Reporter) - The news, when it came to CBS News in New York early on Memorial Day, May 29, was horrifying. A car bomb had exploded in a relatively quiet Baghdad neighborhood as a CBS News crew was following a U.S. Army Fourth Infantry Division unit on a routine patrol. Cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan were killed instantly, along with the soldier they were...

New York, September 11, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder of an editor of Iraq’s state-run daily Al-Sabah. Abdel Karim al-Rubai, 40, a design editor for the newspaper, was shot Saturday morning while traveling to work in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood known as Camp Sara by several gunmen. The driver of the car was seriously wounded, media sources told CPJ. “We deplore...

The attacks that killed almost 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, started a new kind of conflict, one that President Bush calls a war on terror. As the months and years pass, the war fades into the background of many Americans’ daily lives. But the cost is very real, and it’s constantly escalating. It’s the duty of journalists to keep the American public aware of this cost. In its pages of...

BAGHDAD -- A month-long ban imposed by Iraq's government on Dubai-based satellite channel Al Arabiya highlights the delicate path that media in Iraq must tread between dangerous insurgents and prickly authorities. More than 100 journalists have been killed in Iraq in the past three years while others have been imprisoned by the US-led coalition, and Iraqi officials have had a difficult...

The use of embedded reporters by major newspapers in the United States (US) did affect the number and the type of stories published, resulting in more articles about the US soldiers' personal lives and fewer articles about the impact of the war on Iraqi civilians. THE MA'AM FACTOR: Ann Scott Tyson, who says she encountered "a lot of fighting" while reporting for the Christian Science Monitor from...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's government on Friday defended its decision to close the Baghdad bureau of Al Arabiya television for "sectarian" reporting, despite criticism from media bodies which called the ban an assault on press freedom. "If al Qaeda wanted reporters to work for it, it could do no better than the reporters for Arabiya," Yasseen Majeed, media advisor to Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al...

New York, September 7, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by reports that an Iraqi journalist on trial for defamation has been missing since Sunday morning. A source told CPJ that Ahmed Mutair Abbas, managing editor of the defunct daily Sada Wasit in the southern city of Kut, called Sunday morning to say that he was on his way from Kut to Baghdad to attend his trial hearing...