Iraq
Journalists' death toll increasesPosted Jul 20 2007
The number of media workers killed since the start of the year has reached 36, Reporters Without Borders announced on June 28. The recent victims of violence are Rahim Al-Maliki, 39, and Zeena Shakir Mahmoud, 35. Maliki hosted two cultural shows on Al-Iraqiya TV; he was killed in a suicide bomb attack at the Mansour Hotel in Baghdad where he was covering the meeting of tribal chiefs on June 25. Mahmoud worked for the newspaper Al-Haqiqa of the Democratic Kurdish Party; she was shot dead in the eastern part of the city of Mosul, on 24 June. “We extend our condolences to the families of the victims,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Iraqi journalists put their lives in danger each time they go to work. More and more Iraqi media are leaving the capital for safer locations in the Kurdish north or in neighboring countries, but their local correspondents are left without any protection and their killers continue to operate with impunity.”