Iraq restricts press freedoms further

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been continuously centralizing control in Iraq and moving against some of his rivals. However, he is also moving against any media criticism of his regime.

A report from the Journalism Freedoms Observatory claims that there are more restrictions being placed on journalists. Also journalists are often arbitrarily arrested and often attacked by security forces when they try to cover events.

The report says:“Security forces deal with a journalist holding a camera in the same way it deals with those they find possessing car bombs or unlicensed weapons,” As well the government is promoting a new law that would mete out harsh penalties for distributing news that would be “against the public interests”. Journalists could be barred from accessing the Internet without a permit from the military.

The Deputy Interior Minister has said that media freedom is a "threat to national security". NOTE:: I expect he phrased it a bit differently but perhaps not. The minister even warned that journalists who publish news about government killings or arrests without government approval will be punished. For more see this article.

The AP version of the Afghan "ambush" in Nangarhar

This version is quite a bit different than the military version that defended the deletions of the footage.

Afghan media: U.S. troops deleted images

By AMIR SHAH
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER


KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan journalists covering the aftermath of a suicide bomb attack and shooting in eastern Afghanistan Sunday said U.S. troops deleted their photos and video and warned them not to publish or air any images of U.S. troops or a car where three Afghans were shot to death.

Afghan witnesses and gunshot victims said U.S. forces fired on civilians in cars and on foot along at least a six-mile stretch of road in Nangarhar province following a suicide attack against the Marine convoy. The U.S. military said militants also fired on American forces during the attack.

The U.S. military and Afghan officials said eight Afghans died and 34 were wounded in the violence. One Marine was also injured.

A freelance photographer working for The Associated Press and a cameraman working for AP Television News said a U.S. soldier deleted their photos and video showing a four-wheel drive vehicle in which three people were shot to death about 100 yards from the suicide bombing. The AP plans to lodge a protest with the American military.

The photographer, Rahmat Gul, said witnesses at the scene told him the three had been shot to death by U.S. forces fleeing the attack. The two AP freelancers arrived at the site about a half hour after the suicide bombing, Gul said.

"When I went near the four-wheel drive, I saw the Americans taking pictures of the same car, so I started taking pictures," Gul said. "Two soldiers with a translator came and said, 'Why are you taking pictures? You don't have permission.'"

It wasn't clear why the accredited journalists would need permission to take photos of a civilian car on a public highway.

Gul said the U.S. troops took his camera, deleted his photos and returned it to him. The journalists came across another American, showed their identification cards, and he agreed that they could take pictures.



A Western military official who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to release the information said the troops were Marine Special Operations Forces, the Marine Corps component created in February 2006 of the U.S. Special Operations Command.

"The same soldier who took my camera came again and deleted my photos," Gul said. "The soldier was very angry ... I told him, 'They gave us permission,' but he didn't listen."

Gul's new photos were also deleted, and the American, speaking through a translator, warned him that he did not want to see any AP photos published anywhere. The American also raised his fist in anger as if he were going to hit him, but he did not strike, Gul said.

Lt. Col. David Accetta, a U.S. military spokesman, said he did not have any confirmed reports that coalition forces "have been involved in confiscating cameras or deleting images."

Khanwali Kamran, a reporter for the Afghan channel Ariana Television, was in a small group of journalists working alongside Gul. Kamran said the American soldiers also deleted his footage.

"They warned me that if it is aired ... then, 'You will face problems,'" Kamran said.

Taqiullah Taqi, a reporter for Afghanistan's largest television station, Tolo TV, said Americans were using abusive language.

"According to the translator, they said, 'Delete them, or we will delete you,'" Taqi said.

A freelance cameraman for AP Television News said that about 100 yards from the bomb site, a U.S. officer told him that he could not go any closer to the scene but that he could shoot footage. The cameraman asked not to be named for his own safety.

"Then I started filming the suicide attack site, where there was a body and U.S. soldiers, and farther away, there was a four-wheel drive vehicle in which three people were shot to death," he said.

As he was filming, he said, a U.S. soldier and translator "ordered us not to move." The cameraman said they were very angry and deleted any footage that included the Americans, as well as part of an interview from a demonstration. Hundreds of Afghans had gathered to protest the violence.

Reporters Without Borders condemned the actions of the U.S. forces, saying they dealt with the press poorly.

"Why did the soldiers do it if they don't have anything to hide? The situation is very tense in Afghanistan, and the media should be able to report about it freely and safely," said Jean-Francois Julliard, a spokesman for the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders.

Iraq Syndicate of Journalist raided by US soldiers

Ironic that just after being recognised the offices of the ISJ are raided. Press freedom in Iraq has declined even more since Hussein was overthrown according to international rankings of countries.Iraq has gone from 130 to 154. No doubt this raid will be below the radar of most of the western press.


IRAQ:
Another U.S. Military Assault on Media
Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily

BAGHDAD, Feb 23 (IPS) - Iraqi journalists are outraged over yet another U.S. military raid on the media.

U.S. soldiers raided and ransacked the offices of the Iraq Syndicate of Journalists (ISJ) in central Baghdad Tuesday this week. Ten armed guards were arrested, and 10 computers and 15 small electricity generators kept for donation to families of killed journalists were seized.

This is not the first time U.S. troops have attacked the media in Iraq, but this time the raid was against the very symbol of it. Many Iraqis believe the U.S. soldiers did all they could to deliver the message of their leadership to Iraqi journalists to keep their mouth shut about anything going wrong with the U.S.-led occupation.

"The Americans have delivered so many messages to us, but we simply refused all of them," Youssif al-Tamimi of the ISJ in Baghdad told IPS. "They killed our colleagues, closed so many newspapers, arrested hundreds of us and now they are shooting at our hearts by raiding our headquarters. This is the freedom of speech we received."

Some Iraqi journalists blame the Iraqi government.

"Four years of occupation, and those Americans still commit such foolish mistakes by following the advice of their Iraqi collaborators," Ahmad Hassan, a freelance journalist from Basra visiting Baghdad told IPS. "They (the U.S. military) have not learned yet that Iraqi journalists will raise their voice against such acts and will keep their promise to their people to search for the truth and deliver it to them at any cost."

There is a growing belief in Iraq that U.S. allies in the current Iraqi government are leading the U.S. military to raid places and people who do not follow Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's directions.

"It is our Iraqi colleagues who pushed the Americans to that hole," Fadhil Abbas, an Iraqi television producer told IPS. "Some journalists who failed to fake the truth here are trying hard to silence truth seekers by providing false information to the U.S. military in order to take advantage of their stupidity in handling the whole Iraqi issue."

The incident occurred just two days after the Iraqi Union covering journalists received formal recognition from the government. The new status allowed the Syndicate access to its previously blocked bank account, and it had just purchased new computers and satellite equipment.

"Just at the point when the Syndicate achieves formal recognition for its work as an independent body of professionals, the American military carries out a brutal and unprovoked assault," International Federation of Journalists General Secretary Aidan White said in a statement. "Anyone working for media that does not endorse U.S. policy and actions could now be at risk."

The raid was a "shocking violation of journalists' rights," White said. "In the past three years more than 120 Iraqi journalists, many of them Syndicate members, have been killed, and now their union has been turned over in an unprovoked act of intimidation."

"The Americans and their Iraqi government followers are destroying social activities and civil unions so that no group can oppose their crimes and plans," 55-year-old lawyer Hashim Jawad of the Iraqi Lawyers Union in Baghdad told IPS. "The press is our remaining lung to breathe democracy in this country and now it is being targeted."

The Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), an independent humanitarian association based in Geneva which seeks to strengthen legal protection and safety of journalists around the world also strongly condemned the U.S. military raid.

The media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders lists at least 148 journalists and media workers killed in Iraq since the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

The group also compiles an annual Press Freedom Index for countries around the world. In 2002, under Saddam Hussein's rule, Iraq ranked 130. In the 2006 index, Iraq fell to position 154.

The same index listed the U.S. at 17 in 2002, a rank that fell to 56 by 2006.

The Brussels Tribunal, a group of "intellectuals, artists and activists who denounce the...war," lists the names, dates and circumstances in which 191 media professionals of Iraqi nationality have been killed.

The PEC and the other watchdogs have requested the Iraqi government to launch an immediate inquiry into the attack.

"I only wish the U.S. administration and our government would stop lying about freedom in Iraq," Mansoor Salim, a retired journalist, told IPS. "How stupid we were to have believed their statements about freedom. I admit that I was one of the fools."

(Ali al-Fadhily is our Baghdad correspondent. Dahr Jamail is our specialist writer who has spent eight months reporting from inside Iraq and has been covering the Middle East for several years.) (END/2007)