Iraq

BAGHDAD, June 28 (Reuters) - Iraq on Wednesday accused al Qaeda militants of killing a correspondent for the al Arabiya satellite channel in February. Atwar Bahjat disappeared with her cameraman Khaled Al Falahi and soundman Adnan Khairallah near Samarra as she reported on a bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in the town on Feb. 22. Their bodies were found the following morning. Iraq's National Security...

British broadcasters are making a series of fictionalised accounts of the Iraq war that will include a controversial Channel 4 dramatisation of soldiers abusing prisoners. Screenwriter Tony Marchant's new drama, The Mark of Cain, which began filming this month in Tunisia, draws on stories such as that of Fusilier Gary Bartlam, who was arrested in 2003 after trying to develop a roll of film that...

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 23 (IPS) - If one were to ask Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena why she chose to report from Afghanistan, Algeria, Somalia and Iraq prior to February 2005, despite the many perils that face reporters in war zones and areas of conflict, her response would probably be similar to the one she gave to journalist Amy Goodman of the radio news show Democracy Now!. "I can't go only...

Journalists from all over the world Thursday joined journalists in Iraq in their appeal for action to curb the violence against media staff which has claimed at least 130 lives in just three years. A statement from a global Committee for the Defence of Journalists in Iraq also highlighted a worldwide humanitarian appeal to help the media victims of violence. THEIR PHOTOGRAPHS: An Iraqi journalist...

It's been more than 16 months since CNN's former chief news executive Eason Jordan made what even he now regards as inarticulate comments about the U.S. military's role in the deaths of journalists working in Iraq. Inarticulate–and incendiary: Under fire from conservative bloggers and others for his suggestion at a forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the military may have targeted and killed a dozen...

With the recent deaths of two CBS employees, the Iraq war officially became the deadliest ever for journalists, with 71 killed. This is more journalists than died in World War II, Korea or Vietnam. CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier was also badly injured in the May 29 attack that killed a cameraman and a soundman. Dozier graduated from St. Timothy's School in Baltimore County in 1984. The Sun and...

The deaths of two CBS crew members in Iraq and the wounding of a veteran correspondent have dealt yet another deadly blow to news organizations determined to cover a conflict increasingly perilous to journalists. For months, the killings and kidnappings of news professionals in Iraq have prompted a reappraisal of the need for large staffs there. While no major news organizations say they are...

7 June 2006 – With yet one more Iraqi journalist murdered, the head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today yet again stressed the vital role of a free press plays in establishing democracy, voicing the hoped that “the authorities will be able to stop this wave of assassinations which is as tragic as it is senseless.” Ali Jaafar 24, a well-known...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists, joined by the Iraqi Syndicate of Journalists and the Kurdish Association of Journalists, today launched a global campaign to end the terrifying ordeal of journalists in Iraq where at least 128 media staff have been killed and hundreds more injured or disabled in what has become the deadliest media war in modern history. The General...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, June 2, 2006 - An Iraqi cameraman for Reuters news agency was released Thursday after being held for 12 days by the U.S. military. Ali al-Mashhadani, 37, was arrested at a U.S. base in his home town of Ramadi on May 20 while trying to recover Reuters cell phones confiscated from him a week earlier, Reuters reported. It said U.S. officials deemed the cameraman a security...