Newspaper journalist wounded in Fallujah ambush, nephew killed

Reporters Without Borders today called for cases of violence against journalists and media assistants to be systematically investigated after a newspaper journalist was the target of a murder attempt during the weekend in Fallujah, 50 km west of Baghdad. “Iraqi journalists continue to work in extremely dangerous conditions that go beyond the war they are covering,” the press freedom organisation said. “No substantial measures have been taken to investigate these targeted killings, which have been on the increase of late.” Sami Al-Duleimi of the weekly Al-Bashara was ambushed outside his home in Fallujah on 21 April. A car blocked his way and its occupants opened fire, wounding him and killing his nephew, who was accompanying him. The chairman of the newspaper's board, Najem Abdallah, has escaped two murder attempts in recent months. Journalist Hussein Al-Jaburi was injured in a similar ambush outside his Baghdad home on 11 February, dying of his injuries a month later. The security forces meanwhile carried out a heavy-handed raid on 19 April on the studios of Al-Fayhaa, a privately-owned TV station affiliated to the (Shiite) Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution, in the northern Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah. They arrested 10 of the station's employees (whose names were not released) and held them for 24 hours without giving any explanation. The station's management said a number of people subsequently gathered in the street outside the studios chanting hostile slogans in what appeared to be a “warning.”