20 April 2005
JOURNALISTS KILLED
IFEX members are urging Iraq's new government to make media safety a top priority following the deaths of at least four journalists and media support staff in the past week.
On 14 April 2005, two journalists from the television station Al-Hurriya were killed in suicide bombings while on their way to an assignment in Baghdad, reported the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Producer Fadhil Hazem Fadhil and camera operator Ali Ibrahim Isa, both Iraqis, were on their way to an event honouring Iraq's new president Jalal Talabani when their car was hit by bombs outside a ministry building. A reporter and a driver survived the attack, which also killed 18 civilians. Al-Hurriya is owned by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a political party headed by Talabani.
The day after the attack, Shamal Abdallah Assad was killed when gunmen opened fire on him on Kirkuk's main street. Assad worked for Kirkuk TV, a Kurdish station, and Kurdsat, a satellite television station owned by the PUK.
Meanwhile, IFJ says journalist Ahmed al-U'badi was reportedly beheaded in Baghdad by a group known as al-Jihad and al-Tawhit. Al-U'badi worked for the newspaper "Al-Sabah".
The vast majority of journalists killed in Iraq are locals. According to CPJ, 39 journalists have been killed in the country since March 2003, of which 21 are Iraqi.
Visit:
- IFJ:
http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?Index=3077&Language=EN- CPJ:
http://www.cpj.org/news/2005/Iraq15apr05na.html- Journalists in Danger: Facts on Iraq:
http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/2003/gulf03/iraq_stats.html- RSF:
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=13240- International News Safety Institute:
http://www.newssafety.com/casualties/2005.htm- Iraq Travel Advisory for Journalists:
http://www.newssafety.com/hotspots/iraq.htm