21 August 2003
IFEX MEMBERS CONDEMN KILLING OF CAMERAMAN
Five IFEX member organisations have called on the American government to conduct an immediate and thorough investigation into the death of Reuters television cameraman Mazen Dana, shot by a U.S. soldier while filming near a prison outside Baghdad, Iraq.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says Dana, 43, was hit by gunfire from a U.S. tank on 17 August while filming near Abu Ghraib Prison, where six Iraqis were killed by a mortar attack the previous day. While Dana's sound technician, Nael Shyioukhi, told Reuters that they had received permission from U.S. troops to film in the area, American officials said the soldier who fired at Dana mistook his camera for a grenade launcher, CPJ notes.
CPJ has joined Index on Censorship, the International Press Institute (IPI), Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in urging an immediate investigation into Dana's death.
With up to 60 U.S. soldiers killed and hundreds more injured in vigilante attacks that have erupted since the end of the Iraqi war, morale among American troops in Iraq has hit rock bottom, notes Index on Censorship. "To journalists on the ground, the principal cause of Dana's death appears to be combat stress - the cumulative effect of loss of morale, exhaustion and the constant tension brought on by the fear of a hit-and-run attacker emerging from a crowd or a parked car."
CPJ says the incident raises serious questions about the conduct of U.S. troops and their Rules of Engagement. "International humanitarian law requires military forces in conflict situations, including U.S. soldiers currently in Iraq, to take necessary steps to avoid harming journalists and other civilians."
Dana's death follows news that a U.S. military inquiry into the death of two journalists at the Palestine Hotel last April has cleared U.S. troops of responsibility, report CPJ, RSF and IFJ.
The U.S. Central Command released a report last week that said the crew of a US tank that fired on the hotel on 8 April acted properly in a "proportionate and justifiably measured response," according to CPJ.
U.S. officials also said the tank acted "fully in accordance with the Rules of Engagement." At the time of the attack, the Palestine Hotel was filled with journalists, two of whom died - Reuters cameraman Tars Protsyuk and José Couso, a Spanish cameraman with the commercial TV station Telecinco.
CPJ says U.S. Central Command's report fails to answer vital questions about the incident, including how the decision to target the hotel was made and whether U.S. commanders knew that journalists were in the Palestine Hotel but failed to alert their forces on the ground.
CPJ's own report on the Palestine Hotel incident, "Permission to Fire," is available at: http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/2003/palestine_hotel/palestine_hotel.html
Visit these links for more information:
- IFJ's List of Journalists Killed During and After the Iraqi War: http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?index=1624&Language=EN
- Index on Censorship: http://www.indexonline.org/news/20030818_iraq.shtml
- Profile of Mazen Dana, a CPJ Press Freedom Award Winner: http://www.cpj.org/awards01/dana.html
- RSF: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=7739
- IPI: http://www.freemedia.at/Protests%202003/IraqUSA18.08.03.htm
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