Deathtrap Iraq

Press freedom groups have called for the release of Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi who has been arrested for throwing his shoes at George W Bush at a Baghdad press conference during a surprise visit by the US president on Sunday. “We obviously regret that the journalist used this method of protest against the politics of the American president," Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said...

The US military has refused to comply with the Iraqi central criminal court's order to release Reuters photographer Ibrahim Jassam. Maj Neal Fisher, a spokesman for detainee operations, said on December 10 that the US military was not bound by Iraqi court orders and would continue to hold Jassam on the grounds that he posed "a threat to Iraq security." Jassam was arrested at his home by US and...

An Iraqi court on Sunday ordered the release of a freelance photographer working for Reuters after being held by US forces since early September, the news agency has reported. The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled there was no evidence against Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, and ordered that the US military release him from Camp Cropper prison near Baghdad airport. Iraqi prosecutors acknowledged in...

A team of journalists working for US media company National Public Radio had a narrow escape from a car bombing in Baghdad after Iraqi soldiers warned them that a device had been attached to the bottom of their armoured car. The bomb exploded about 15 feet from the NPR journalists. It destroyed the car but nobody was injured. Ivan Watson, a 33 year-old reporter for NPR on temporary assignment in...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and the Journalistic Freedom Observatory (JFO) have renewed their call for the release of photographer Ibrahim Jassam of Reuters news agency, who has been detained by the US Army since September 1, 2008. A contingent of US and Iraqi forces took Jassam from his home in Mahmudiyah in the south of the capital, seizing four cameras, his phone and his laptop computer. He...

The Iraqi Kurdistan court of appeals should act immediately to overturn a judge's ruling on Tuesday to impose a one-month prison term against a journalist who published critical reports about the Sulaymania courthouse, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. The journalist's lawyer said newly adopted legislation does not appear to allow such a prison sentence. The Criminal Court...

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...

The number of foreign journalists reporting from Baghdad has been declining sharply, says a Washington Post report. The number of journalists travelling with US forces in Iraq has plummeted in the past year. US military officials say they "embedded" journalists 219 times in September 2007. Last month, the number dwindled to 39. Of the dozen US newspapers and newspaper chains that maintained full...

The Iraqi Ministry of Interior has launched investigations into cases of 48 media personnel who were either killed or subjected to acts of violence, according to the director of the ministry's National Command Centre, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) has reported. Some details: "Investigations have been launched following the establishment of a partnership with the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory...

Iraq's largely autonomous northern Kurdistan region has passed a modified media law aimed at protecting journalists' rights, abolishing jail terms for offences such as defamation, Reuters has reported quoting parliamentary deputies. An earlier version of the law passed by parliament last December carried tough sanctions for journalists including imprisonment, fines of up to 10 million Iraqi dinar...