Operation Iraqi (Press) Freedom
By Hisham El-Rikabi Posted Fri, Jul 6 2007
An unidentified Iraqi journalist holds a note that reads: “Our Demand: Protection and Freedom” during a protest in Diwaniyah, 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq. Diwaniyah journalists demanded freedom to do their work after being prevented during clashes between his Mahdi Army militiamen and U.S.-backed Iraqi troops. (Jalal Mudhar/AP)
Five years Assassinations, kidnapping, arrests and harassments are on the rise for Iraqi journalists and writers in Baghdad. According to observers, freedom of the press plummeted after Saddam Hussein’s regime toppled in April 2003, and Iraqi journalists’ lives and dignity continue to be the target of inhumane and illegal actions. Crimes against the media include murder, kidnapping, random arrests (three journalists are currently imprisoned there), military operations and forced displacement, crimes committed by Iraqi forces, police, multinational forces and militias. In addition, Iraqi journalists and writers are harassed and prevented from covering events and gathering news from sources in Iraqi governmental departments.
Journalists are harassed daily to align them with political sides. Multinational forces, Iraqi security forces, militias and armed groups along with some state institutions do not provide news information to media but treat them with contempt. Military forces confiscate and destroy journalists’ belongings and intimidate them from covering incidents. Some of the Iraqi provinces have supervised intensely the movement of journalists in conveying the news to their organizations, particularly those journalists that work for major media organizations with a substantive public. Basra province has declared this censorship publicly, and Najaf, Karbala, Arbil and Duhok followed. Anbar set procedures to prevent some newspapers and other media agencies that support the democratic change from publishing. Diyala took the same approach.
Some journalists avoid criticizing city councils and security authorities to protect their lives and to let their newspapers continue publishing. Through advertisements, military operations have played an active role in the setback of journalists working in hot spots. As a result, some newspapers, news channels and radio stations have withdrawn their journalists from heavy fighting areas. Keeping journalists from reporting what is happening on the streets of Iraq does not allow readers to know the details.
Televisions stations and newspapers have been closed after they were deemed negative or accused of “incited sectarianism,” according to the International Press Institute’s 2006 World Press Freedom Review. The Baghdad bureaus of Dubai-based Al Arabiya and Qatar-based Al Jazeera satellite channels also faced closure with the ban on Al Jazeera still in place. A nationwide curfew included suspending daily newspapers for three days during the escalation to Saddam’s execution. IPI reported the raids and closures of two Sunni-owned television stations after the broadcast of protests against Saddam’s death sentence.
Anbar, Baghdad, Salah Aldin, Wasit and Najaf have the highest recorded rates journalist detention. Iraqi police forces detain journalists if there is any dispute between journalists and policemen. Multinational forces detain journalists and may raid their homes at night. The judiciary issues few, if any, warrants for arrest, and the multinational forces purposely hide detention places.
Many journalists and writers report threats sent to them by anonymous groups via e-mails, mobile phones or letters left at their doors to warn them against working with the press. Some have had their possessions and furniture stolen and burned. Some journalists have stopped working because of the threats. Baghdad reported the highest rates of displacement followed by Anbar, Diyala, Basra, Salah Aldin and Nineveh. Security services have failed to pursue these threats, and security was not provided for threatened journalists. Others migrate to safer countries, a move that negatively affects their social, psychological and financial conditions and causes a decline in the quality of their lives.
The delay in carrying out law and order in the streets, despite the efforts of the government, has only intensified both random and organized violence against journalists. Intimidation policies have been used to silence journalists by classifying their media as extremist, moderate, biased, loyal or hostile to create a conflict between journalists and citizens. This clash reflects a clear setback in the work and development of media and journalism in Iraq. Many independent newspapers stopped distributing because of decreasing financial and moral support. Some authorities selectively grant advertisements to political parties and government newspapers and deprive many newspapers from any media revenue. This action is a clear retreat for independent newspapers.
On the morning of Oct. 12, 2006, unidentified gunmen stormed the Al-Shaabiya satellite channel and killed several employees, including general manager Abdul-Rahim Nasrallah, deputy general manager Noufel Al-Shimar, administrative manager, Sami Nasrallah Al-Shimar, presenters Thaker Al-Shouwil and Ahmad Sha’bon and Hussein Ali, a video technician, four guards and the station’s generator operator. The station based in Baghdad was founded by the small secular National and Justice Party in July 2006 and was not yet on the air. Safety conditions have not improved this year. Poet and journalist Rahim Al-Maliki died in a suicide bombing in Baghdad on June 25, 2007, while he was covering a meeting of tribal chiefs.
A total of 187 journalists and media assistants have been confirmed murdered since the launch of the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Two more are missing, and 14 others have been confirmed kidnapped with no further information regarding their whereabouts. The deaths of local journalists numbered 40 in 2006, and nearly all of them were classified as targeted assaults; 32 have died so far in 2007, according to Reporters Without Borders. The Review says: “The government’s failure to fully investigate the murder of journalists and media workers has also emerged as an issue of grave concern. Journalists’ deaths are rarely investigated, and the vast majority of perpetrators remain unidentified and unpunished. In many cases this year, journalists were killed in broad daylight, in busy city centres, by insurgents who seemed assured of their own immunity.”
Multinational forces arrange trips for Iraqi and foreign journalists through an international media center to escort forces during military operations, especially in Anbar, Nineveh and Diyala — places selected by the same forces that restrict the news reports. Most Iraqi journalists don’t accompany these officials because of the security situation and because they cannot obtain neutral news reports. However, foreign journalists may wish to escort these forces for many days and require these forces to cooperate and provide security. Violence has become such a factor in this country that it is becoming increasingly difficult to report or survive as a journalist.