Deathtrap Iraq

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders called for an end to the impunity with which journalists are being targeted in Iraq after Omar Mohammed, of US-run Arabic satellite channel al Hurra, escaped a second murder attempt after being ambushed in central Baghdad. Mohammed was fired on by gunmen who had lain in wait for him as he left his office on 11 December 2006. He escaped with a bullet wound to...

NEW YORK: For the past four years there has been no shortage of news and views on Iraq and the long-running war there. What’s been missing: a one-stop-shopping clearinghouse for nonpartisan information, including material coming out of Iraq itself from natives of that country, not from foreign correspondents. Now that need is being addressed in the form of IraqSlogger, in Beta at www.iraqslogger...

New York, December 4, 2006—Unidentified gunmen killed Nabil Ibrahim al-Dulaimi, 36, a news editor for the privately-owned station Radio Dijla, shortly after he left his home in Baghdad’s al-Washash neighborhood for work today, sources at the station told the Committee to Protect Journalists. “We offer our condolences to the family of Nabil Ibrahim al-Dulaimi,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel...

Baghdad: Iraq's parliament will bar the media from future sessions and began yesterday by refusing access to reporters and then cutting off television coverage as a debate on mounting sectarian violence became heated. Spokesmen for the government and parliament said it was part of efforts, newly agreed by Iraq's National Security Council, to stop political leaders contradicting each other in...

BAGHDAD, 27 November (IRIN) - Freelance journalist Samir Khairallah, 31, walks a tight line between reporting the news and not becoming the news. With ongoing insurgent attacks and brutal sectarian violence plaguing the country, he must be careful about what he writes and whose 'side' he is perceived to be on. "Iraqi journalists are in constant danger. Different groups are targeting us without any...

So much for the government's whingeing about "biased" media coverage of the Iraq war. New research suggests Tony Blair et al might have got off lightly: academics who have analysed coverage of the war have found that many media reports filed during the conflict favoured coalition forces - with more than 80% of all stories taking the government line on the moral case for war. "Our findings fail to...

Two Iraqi TV channels have been shut down in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's death sentence, accused of inciting violence among viewers. Press freedom group The Committee to Protect Journalists said it was "concerned" by the decision to close the two Sunni-owned satellite channels. Security forces raided al-Zawraa TV in Baghdad and Saleheddin TV in Tikrit on grounds they were inciting violence...

BAGHDAD, Iraq: An Iraqi journalist who was kidnapped last month was found dead nearly two weeks after his abduction, a Paris-based media advocacy group said in a statement released Thursday. Reporters Without Borders "condemned the murder of Iraqi freelance journalist" Abdul-Majid Ismail Khalil who was kidnapped on Oct. 18 in Baghdad's eastern Jamila neighborhood. Khalil, who worked for several...

The murders of three more media workers has brought the number of journalists and media assistants killed since the start of the war in March 2003 to 154, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has reported. IFJ and other press freedom organisations have condemned the new wave of violence and the fact that authorities have not so far conducted investigations that could put an end to the...

NEW YORK: Associated Press Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll today called on other news organizations, especially those that use AP services, to increase their attention on imprisoned AP photographer Bilal Hussein, who has been held by U.S. military officials in Iraq for more than six months without being charged. Saying Hussein “works on behalf of every news organization that receives news from...