Solana asked to raise press freedom problems at meeting with interim Iraqi president.

Reporters Without Borders today wrote to the EU's high representative for common foreign and security policy, Javier Solana, about the recent problems for press freedom in Iraq and asked him to raise them during his meeting tomorrow in Brussels with Iraq's interim president, Ghazi al-Yawar. "Our concern is all the greater because present trends bode ill for press freedom in Iraq," the organisation wrote in its letter to Solana. "The many cases of intimidation and arrests by the Iraqi police give the lie to the official statements - especially those by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi - advocating the construction of a new democratic Iraq." Reporters Without Borders said it was worried by "the Iraqi authorities' lack of enthusiasm for carrying out investigations into incidents in which journalists have been attacked or have gone missing." It also drew attention to the measures taken by the interim government against the pan-Arab TV news station Al-Jazeera, in particular, a 30-day closure order on 7 August that was extended indefinitely on 4 September. The organisation also mentioned the order issued by the Iraqi government to journalists to leave Najaf on 15 August, when a major offensive was under way there, and the brief arrest on 25 August in Najaf of some 60 journalists, who were taken to police headquarters and accused by the city's police chief, Ghaleb al-Jazairi, of  "not telling the truth." Reporters Without Borders concluded by referring to the series of kidnappings of journalists during August, including Italian reporter Enzo Baldoni whose execution on 26 August tragically highlighted the dangers for the news media in Iraq, and French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot and their Syrian guide Mohammed al-Joundi, who are still being held hostage despite the many appeals for their release, among them one from Solana himself on 30 August.