Deathtrap Iraq

Baghdad: There is good news in Iraq. For our journalists, this week's high points were the safe return of two colleagues seized by a death squad which shot two other hostages and the survival of the teenage nephew of another employee who was kidnapped and tortured in Baghdad. The lows, as I complete nearly two years running the agency's operations in Iraq, were sending condolences to the family of...

The Associated Press has repeated its call for the US military to charge or release one of its freelance photographers whose been jailed in Iraq without charge since April last year. The news wire service said yesterday that Bilal Hussein is accused of being a “security threat” though it stressed no evidence has been produced to substantiate the claim since he was arrested 10 months ago. An...

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF today welcomed the international warrant issued by a Madrid judge yesterday for the arrest of three US soldiers for the "murder" of Spanish cameraman José Couso of the privately-owned television station Telecinco, who was killed on 8 April 2003 when a US tank fired a shell at a Baghdad hotel used by the international media. "We hope that judge Santiago Pedraz's decision to issue...

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF today welcomed the international warrant issued by a Madrid judge yesterday for the arrest of three US soldiers for the “murder” of Spanish cameraman José Couso of the privately-owned television station Telecinco, who was killed on 8 April 2003 when a US tank fired a shell at a Baghdad hotel used by the international media. “We hope that judge Santiago Pedraz’s decision to issue...

(RSF/IFEX) - Just weeks after the UN Security Council's adoption of Resolution 1738 on the protection of journalists in armed conflicts, a new string of killings of journalists in Iraq has underlined the urgent need for the Iraqi government to take determined measures to protect its country's media personnel, Reporters Without Borders said on 18 January 2007. A total of 146 journalists and media...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders expressed its horror at the murder of freelance journalist Khoudr Younes al-Obaidi, who was shot dead as he returned to his home in Mosul, northern Iraq, on 12 January 2007. The killing comes eight days after the discovery of the body in Baghdad of Ahmed Hadi Naji, 28, an occasional cameraman for the Associated Press, who went missing on 30 December 2006...

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein the press in Iraq - like the rest of Iraqi society - has been in a constant state of flux. The collapse of the old regime triggered a media free-for-all. Iraqis were soon able to choose from more than 200 publications, compared with just a handful during the Saddam era. But for every new publication that emerged, several others folded, largely owing to lack of...

New York, January 12, 2007—Unidentified gunmen killed a journalist today in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Khudr Younis al-Obaidi, a reporter for Al-Diwan newspaper, was shot by several men in a car as he walked along a street, The Associated Press reported. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating the circumstances of al-Obaidi’s death. “We condemn the murder of our colleague...

Iraqi journalists, members of parliament and government officials reached an unprecedented agreement about measures to protect and promote free and pluralistic media in Iraq during the International Conference on Freedom of Expression and Media Development in Iraq, held at UNESCO Headquarters from 8 to 10 January. The essential role of free, pluralistic and independent media in any democratic...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned the closure of the Baghdad studios of privately-owned satellite TV al-Charkiya, which was accused of "inciting sectarian violence" for showing footage of Iraqis mourning the death of former president Saddam Hussein. The announcement of his execution and the broadcast of footage of his hanging produced sharply different reactions in the Iraqi...