More violence against journalists amid continuing impunity

Armed groups are threatening press freedom and imposing a reign of terror in Iraq without any attempt being made to identify and punish them, although the number of media employees killed since the start of the war in March 2003 has now reached 148, Reporters Without Borders said today after a new series of attacks on journalists and their assistants. “The security situation is dramatic,” the press freedom organisation said. “There are reports of threats, physical attacks, kidnappings and murders day after day. Gunmen continue to target journalists on the street in broad daylight with complete impunity. This endemic violence is jeopardising the quality and diversity of news and information in Iraq.” Three journalists in brushes with death Freelance journalist Satar Ziyara Al Husseini, 50, who writes for several newspapers including the London-based, Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat, narrowly survived a murder attempt on 28 January, when gunmen aboard two vehicles fired on him outside his home. He was rushed to hospital with serious injuries. Uday Al Mukhtar, a correspondent of the satellite TV station Al-Diyar, was targeted the next day in the southern city of Al-Amarah by gunmen on a motorcycle, who fired at him several times before taking off. Hussein Al Jaburi, the editor of the daily Al-Safir, was ambushed by gunmen outside his home in the Baghdad neighbourhood of Al-Doura on 11 February, sustaining gunshot wounds in the abdomen and back. His family said he had received calls on his mobile phone in the preceding weeks in which he was warned he would be killed if he did not stop writing. Al-Hurra employee kidnapped in Baghdad Ihab Mohammed, 32, an employee of the US Arabic-language TV station Al-Hurra, was abducted as he emerged from a bank in central Baghdad on 13 February. Reporters Without Borders has been told the station is in touch with his kidnappers. A total of 56 journalists and media assistants have been abducted since the start of the war. Eight of them are currently being held hostage. Media targeted Rockets were fired at the premises of the independent daily Al Sabah Al Jadid's printing press on 8 February, injuring at least four people. Editor Ismael Zair said the premises of the newspaper had been attacked several times in the past and two of its employees have been the victims of kidnappings. US forces raided the premises of the Reconciliation and Liberation Party in Al-Huaija (70 km southwest of Kirkuk) on 9 February looking for the studios of the banned satellite TV station Al-Zaura after it clandestinely broadcast footage of armed attacks on US installations in Iraq. Egyptian information minister Anas Ahmad Nabil Al-Faki meanwhile reported that the US ambassador in Cairo, Francis J. Ricciardone, has requested that the Egyptian satellite Nilesat stop carrying Al-Zaura's signal. Al-Zaura's studios in Baghdad were closed on 5 November after it carried footage of demonstrators brandishing pictures of former president Saddam Hussein and protesting against his death sentence. The interior ministry ordered its closure on the grounds that it had incited sectarian violence and since then it has not been given permission to resume broadcasting.