Less than a week after a Radio-Canada journalist was seriously injured in Afghanistan, the Canadian military has announced new requirements for journalists embedded with soldiers there.
Journalists covering the mission will start wearing dogtags for identification, just like soldiers. Military officials said Monday the dogtags would help make identification easier if journalists are killed while on patrol with soldiers.
As well, media going to Afghanistan will be required to take a first-aid course and attend information sessions about the risks of working in a war-torn country.
Brig.-Gen. Guy Laroche, the commander of the Canadian troops in Afghanistan, said the new requirements were not intended to restrict the movement of journalists in the country.
He said the training sessions and dogtags were necessary to ensure incoming media understand what could happen while they are covering the military mission.
The new requirements follow a roadside bomb explosion last Wednesday that injured a journalist and killed two Canadian soldiers and an Afghan interpreter.
Radio-Canada journalists Charles Dubois and Patrice Roy were travelling with Canadian soldiers at the time of the blast.
Dubois, a cameraman, suffered a serious leg injury. He later underwent surgery in a military hospital. His colleague Roy, Radio-Canada's Ottawa bureau chief, suffered from shock.
