Iraqi authorities have unveiled a new hotline to protect journalists, Reuters has reported. The new hotline was set up with the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, a non-governmental Iraqi organisation that defends reporters.
The hotline numbers are posted on the JFO website www.jfoiraq.org. Journalists who feel threatened can phone JFO, which will quickly pass their case on to a special police squad set up to protect them.
Some details:
The organisation's head Ziad al-Ajili said the new initiative was a sign the authorities are at last recognising the importance of protecting the media. "This is a great success on all levels, an agreement which took place among press organisations to protect journalists," al-Ajili told a news conference last week unveiling the project.
In just two weeks, the hotline helped thwart the killing of Qusay and another television reporter in Basra, said Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul Karim al-Khalaf. Suspects have also been captured in the northern city of Mosul accused of kidnapping and killing three TV journalists for the al-Sharqiya channel, he said. Khalaf said that the Interior Ministry has records of 276 journalists killed since 2003.
