Authorities asked to be more discerning after five journalists arrested in two weeks

Reporters Without Borders voiced alarm today about the arrests of five journalists in the past two weeks and urged the Iraqi authorities to be more discerning. "We are very worried about the increase in arrests of local journalists, often without any evidence or for unknown reasons," the press freedom organization said. "Iraqi journalists now have to deal with this new problem, in which their employers are often powerless to act. Both employers and family members must be given an explanation for such arrests." Reporters Without Borders continued: "We appeal to the Iraqi authorities to be more discerning and restrained, and to not carry out hasty and arbitrary arrests. Some of the police behaviour has been completely unacceptable, such as the beatings given to the Reuters cameraman and two of his assistants, and requests for exorbitant sums of money that are tantamount to extortion." The organization said it called on the Iraqi authorities to put an end to such "disgraceful practices" and to either quickly produce evidence to back up the allegations against the journalists or release them. The first of the journalists to be arrested in this wave was Hussein Al Shimari, a reporter with the satellite TV station Al-Diyar, who was detained by Iraqi soldiers on 9 April in Dyala province, northeast of Baghdad, on suspicion of collaborating with the insurgents. His editor said he was tortured. He has not been allowed to contact his family, which has not received any word of him since his arrest. The mayor of the southern town of Kawit ordered the arrest of Ayad Altmimi, the editor of the daily newspaper Sada Wasit, and journalist Ahmed Mutare Abass on 12 April. Ibrahim Al-Srage of IJRDA, an organization that defends Iraqi journalists, said the mayor requested an arrest warrant from his cousin, the town's public prosecutor, who responded by sentencing Altmimi to two months in prison and Abass to four months in prison for libel. The newspaper had carried reports about the constant violent crime and the shortcomings of the municipal authorities. On 20 April, several policemen burst into the home of freelance cameraman Hassan Walid Abdul Wahab, 23, who works regularly for the German TV station Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF), arresting him, his two brothers (who do not work for the news media) and his father, a retired cinema operator in his 50s who was recently hospitalized with heart problems. A relative said that, as a pretext for holding him, the police suggested Wahab could be linked to the abductors of the Romanian journalists. A policeman today asked the family for 10,000 US dollars. Police arrested Reuters Television cameraman Nabil Hussein on 24 April in the northern city of Mosul. Reached by telephone, Reuters spokesperson Susan Allsopp told Reporters Without Borders the police have not said what he is charged with. According to Reuters, Hussein's father was also arrested when he tried to visit his son a few hours after his arrest. Describing the original arrest, relatives told Reuters about 20 police raided the home in the morning, beating Hussein, another journalist and their driver, before taking them to police headquarters in Mosul. The driver, Ismail Ibrahim, said the police "put sacks on our heads and beat us." Reuters global managing editor David Schlesinger said he was very concerned about the arrests and called for the immediate release of Hussein and his father. "We are anxious to establish why our cameraman is being held and what if any charges have been brought." Reuters today said it was still waiting for news.