An Iraqi photographer working for the Associated Press (AP) was kidnapped in Diyala province on Tuesday, while another journalist working for state-run al-Sabah newspaper has been reported missing, acording to reports.
An armed group intercepted the car of AP photographer Talal Ahmed Abdullah in central Baquba, 60 kilometres north of Baghdad, and took him to an unknown location, the independent Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported, citing an official Iraqi police source.
Abdullah is the second journalist reported missing in Iraq in as many days. On Monday, an Iraqi correspondent for the state-run al-Sabah newspaper in the city of Kut, went missing while on his way to work, a Baghdad-based media watchdog Journalistic Freedoms Observatory (JFO) said on Tuesday.
Hassan Shahid al-Azzawi had visited a local market before heading to work, but mysteriously disappeared, JFO said. Al-Azzawi was detained and tried in April 2007 on charges of defaming the former chairman of the Kut municipal council in an article published about a year earlier, according to JFO. He spent several months in prison after being found guilty. Kut is some 60 kilometres south of Baghdad.
Before his disappearance he also worked for the local Kut Television, which is managed by the Iraqi Media Network, and as an evening instructor in a teachers institute in Kut.
According to JFO, 55 Iraqi and foreign journalists and media workers were kidnapped during the past four years, 39 of whom were killed and 16 were still missing.
