It wasn't a good couple of days for journalists in Iraq or a positive reflection on a government that is supposed to be a fledgling Democracy.
When a press conference by the advisory commission of the Shabak, an Iraqi ethnic minority demanding their rights, turned heated today parliament security guards held 35 journalists against their will and confiscated their equipment. They stopped broadcasts and cut off internet lines so no journalist could file the news to their offices, the Journalistic Freedom Observatory an independent Iraqi organization that monitors violations of press freedom.
An Arabic satellite television station reported that a young cameraman was beaten by guards and in Kirkuk a young man named Diyar Abbas Ahmed was shot down as he left the Artist Union in the Northern city.
The Kurdish man left the union with a friend and gunmen drove up. They leaned out of the windows of their vehicle and yelled for people to move out of the way so they could shoot Ahmed. Ahmed's friend tried to protect him but the men shot bullets into the air and then shot the 25-year-old, friends and police said.
Diyar was a young journalist who worked for The Eye, a privately owned Iraqi News Agency. He is one of 222 media workers who've been killed in Iraq since the start of the war, according to Reporters without Borders.
His death is a tragedy and his life was a light. The more journalists that are killed or intimidated the more darkness there will be.
It seems the dark days are returning to Iraq. Or, perhaps they never really went away. The US media shows only videos of Iraqis enjoying their "new freedoms". That is, when they bother to cover Iraq at all.
Posted by: R J Adams | October 11, 2008 at 09:32 PM
Thank you for shedding light on the situation in Iraq, and thank you to all your staff too.
I am hoping the darkness ends one day.
Posted by: Susan | October 13, 2008 at 10:58 PM