6 July 2005
US TROOPS ASSAILED FOR SHOOTING JOURNALISTS
International press freedom groups are voicing concern over the conduct of U.S. troops in Iraq following the deaths of four Iraqi journalists in the past week and the detentions of dozens of local reporters by American and Iraqi forces.
On 28 June 2005, Ahmed Wael Bakri, a director and news producer for the local television station Al-Sharqiyah, was killed by gunfire as he approached U.S. troops. The Associated Press reported that Bakri had failed to pull over for a U.S. convoy while trying to pass a traffic accident. U.S. soldiers fired at his car 15 times.
On 26 June, Maha Ibrahim, a news editor for Baghdad TV, was killed when U.S. troops opened fire during a gunfight in Baghdad, reported the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Two days earlier, an unidentified Iraqi reporter working for an American news organisation was shot and killed by U.S. troops in Baghdad after allegedly failing to respond to a shouted warning from a military convoy.
In another incident, Knight Ridder correspondent Yasser Salihee was shot to death in Baghdad on 24 June, apparently by a US sniper. Salihee was driving alone in his neighborhood of Amariyah when a bullet pierced his windshield and struck him in the head as he approached a joint patrol of American and Iraqi troops, according to Knight Ridder.
The killings have prompted CPJ, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) to call on US forces to conduct independent investigations into the incidents.
The IFJ says U.S. soldiers have killed 17 journalists and media staff in Iraq since March 2003.
CPJ and Human Rights Watch have written a joint letter to US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld urging better safety measures at U.S. military checkpoints and roadblocks in Iraq. The organisations say the U.S. military's failure to develop and implement adequate procedures at checkpoints "unnecessarily endangers the lives of civilians and U.S. service members."
Three journalists and a media worker have been killed by soldiers at U.S. checkpoints since March 2003, and there have been many other incidents in which guns were raised or warning shots were fired, says CPJ.
Meanwhile, CPJ has expressed deep concern about the detention of dozens of journalists by U.S. and Iraqi authorities over the past two years. Most of the journalists have been Iraqis, many of whom work for foreign news media. In most cases, they are detained without charges or explanations. "U.S. and Iraqi forces must credibly explain the basis for holding those in custody or release them at once," says CPJ.
Visit:
- IFJ: http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?Index=3223&Language=EN
- CPJ:
http://www.cpj.org/news/2005/Iraq29june05na.html
- Letter to Rumsfeld: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/06/17/usint11146.htm
- RSF:
http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=43
- Knight Ridder Pays Tribute to Salihee: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12026482.htm
- Reporter Recounts What Iraqi Checkpoints Are Like:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0307/p01s04-woiq.html
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