18 October 2006
DEADLY CONFLICT HITS NEW LOW FOR VIOLENCE AGAINST MEDIA
The war in Iraq, which has claimed the lives of well over 100 journalists and media workers, has taken a particularly bloody turn in recent days. On 12 October 2006, masked gunmen executed 11 employees in cold blood and critically wounded two others at the Al-Shaabiya satellite television station in Baghdad's Zayouna district, report the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the International Press Institute
(IPI), Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
The incident is the deadliest single assault on the press since the US-led invasion in March 2003, says CPJ.
Al-Shaabiya, which had yet to go on the air, is owned by the National Justice and Progress Party, a small secular party, whose leader, Abdul-Rahim Nasrallah
al-Shimari was among those murdered.
Others killed included: bodyguard Ali Jabber; deputy general manager Noufel al-Shimari; presenters Thaker al-Shouwili and Ahmad Sha'ban; administrative manager Sami Nasrallah al-Shimari; video mixer Hussein Ali; as well as three guards and the station's generator operator.
The raid on Al-Shaabiya was the second attack on a Baghdad TV station in as many weeks, notes IPI. On 1 October, a car bomb blew up outside Al-Rafidain television, killing two pedestrians and wounding five station employees.
Hamad Ibrahim, a driver for the state TV-station Al-Iraqiya, was killed on 3 October in the city of Mosul when his vehicle was riddled with bullets by unidentified gunmen, report CPJ and RSF. Jassim Aarif Hassan, an employee of the TV station Al-Charkiya, was also gunned down on 7 October in west Baghdad.
The body of journalist Azad Muhammad Hussein was discovered in a Baghdad morgue on 10 October, seven days after unidentified gunmen had kidnapped him, according to CPJ, IPI and IFJ. The 29-year-old reporter showed signs of torture. He worked for
Radio Dar Al-Salam, owned by the Iraqi Islamic Party, a major Sunni political group that joined the US-supported government in early 2006.
And, on 14 October, journalist Raed Qaies, who worked for the radio station Sawt Al Iraq (Voice of Iraq) and as a producer of economic news for Somer Radio, was killed in southern Baghdad, reports IFJ.
Meanwhile, a British coroner ruled on 13 October that the death of ITN reporter Terry Lloyd was an "unlawful killing." Witnesses said Lloyd was shot in the head by American troops while being driven to hospital during the early days of the war in March 2003.
IFJ welcomed the verdict and called on the United States to "tell the whole truth" about the Lloyd case and 19 other media deaths at the hands of US troops in Iraq.
Visit these links:
- CPJ: http://www.cpj.org/news/2006/mideast/iraq12oct06na.html
- IPI:
http://www.freemedia.at/cms/ipi/statements_detail.html?ctxid=CH0055&docid=CMS1160663179608
- RSF: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=19132
- IFJ: http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?Index=4300&Language=EN
- Iraqi Journalists Rights Defence Association: http://www.ijrda.com
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