Deathtrap Iraq

The news editor of a prominent Shiite-run television station in Iraq was released Friday afternoon from US custody, two weeks after a raid aimed at disrupting Iranian-backed militia groups, a producer for the station told the Associated Press. The AP report said: Hafidh al-Beshara, the news editor and manager of political programming for Al-Forat TV, and his son were taken into custody after...

Iraqi authorities have vowed to hunt down the killers of journalists, days after the head of the country's biggest journalist organisation became the latest media worker to meet a violent death, Reuters has reported. The interior ministry said 270 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called...

The Iraqi press has once again paid dearly for its commitment to more freedom — the head of the country's largest journalists organisation died on Wednesday, four days after being seriously wounded by gunmen who fired at his car in Baghdad. Jabbar Tarrad al-Shimmari, deputy head of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that al-Tamimi, 74

A journalist’s claim that 11 of his close relatives were murdered in Iraq last weekend is false. Amman-based Iraqi journalist Dia al-Kawwaz had claimed on November 26 that 11 members of his immediate family were shot by gunmen the previous day in Baghdad. “We are obviously relieved to learn that the Kawwaz family is safe and sound but this journalist’s behaviour is unacceptable,” Reporters

A journalist’s claim that 11 of his close relatives were murdered in Iraq last weekend is false. Amman-based Iraqi journalist Dia al-Kawwaz had claimed on November 26 that 11 members of his immediate family were shot by gunmen the previous day in Baghdad. “We are obviously relieved to learn that the Kawwaz family is safe and sound but this journalist’s behaviour is unacceptable,” Reporters sans...

BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi journalist Wednesday challenged government denials that 11 of his relatives were slaughtered in their Baghdad home, urging authorities to show that his claim was false by letting "all my family appear on television." Dhia al-Kawaz, editor of the Jordan-based Aswat al-Iraq news agency, had said masked gunmen stormed the family home and killed two of his sisters, their...

Baghdad - Unidentified gunmen murdered 11 family members of an Iraqi journalist in east Baghdad, independent Voices of Iraq reported Monday citing a statement by the Iraqi committee to protect journalists. About seven armed men in a civilian car broke into the house of Diyaa al-Wakaz Sunday, shooting dead all his family members including his wife and children, witnesses said. Al-Wakaz, who...

Nov. 26, 2007 · The U.S. military continues to refuse to release any evidence against an AP photojournalist, even as they plan to bring criminal charges against him. The military first took Bilal Hussein, a member of the AP’s 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning photo team, into custody in April of 2006 when Hussein provided shelter for several strangers after hearing an explosion on a nearby street in...

BAGHDAD: An Iraqi and his wife who both work as journalists for a prestigious Arabic language newspaper escaped assassination in Baghdad's mostly Shiite Karradah district, a media watchdog group said Saturday. Abdul-Wahid Tuma and his wife, Sudad al-Salihi, who work for Al-Hayat were traveling by car Thursday when assailants in two vehicles fired at them, said Ibrahim al-Saraji, head of the...

Siham Mustafa sits behind a radio microphone and clutches a piece of paper. She is ready to fight. Earlier in the morning, al Qaeda in Iraq had hacked her radio station's Web site and posted a letter promising "to kill everyone from Radio Dijla." It was the latest act of aggression against the renegade news and talk radio station that has overcome remarkable odds to remain one of the country's few...