How can you establish a free media in such fear and anarchy?

[Guest guest]

S

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 21:44:34 EDT

How can you establish a free media in such fear and anarchy?

 

 

 

 

Put this together with the pressure the US has been putting on news

agencies and media all over the world -- even Greece, as we read

recently if they are reporting truth instead of propaganda.

 

Put this together with the US not allowing a British reporter (Robert

Fisk)to enter the country 2 days ago (from Canada) and of course he

was liberal.

 

And a reporter from Al Jazeera locked up at Gitmo, even still -- for

well over a year, maybe two now -- no charges, just simply probably

that he happened to tell the truth

 

An Iraqi cameraman is still locked up -- the reporter he was with was

released but they are holding the cameraman....I guess for taking

pictures.

 

troops kidnapping reporters like the one they kidnapped at that same

hotel and held till after their use of napalm in fallujah.

 

Three Australian journalists were tortured by American troops who said

they thought their cameras were weapons. (I don't know what they

thought once they loaded them blindfolded on top of each other and put

the cameras into the car -- I guess they still thought the cameras

were weapons)

 

a hotel bombed that everyone knew housed the journalists just before

Fallujah strike, and then a visit from troops warning the journalists

not to even think of covering Fallujah massacre

 

...and we have a government and military that are not only not giving

freedom, but they are shutting down freedom.

 

Remember when they shut down Al Sadr's newspaper.

 

This is called " Operation Iraqi Freedom " folks. We don't even have

freedom of the press here let alone allow it there. How can someone

possibly believe the bullshit that we are doing anything for Iraq?

 

And people continue to say we need to stay to keep the peace...what

planet are they living on?

 

Unfortunately some people believe this is okay because no Arabs tell

the truth anyway. <sigh>

 

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1578213,00.html

 

 

'How can you establish a free media in such fear and anarchy?'

 

Last week Fakher Haidar al-Tamimi became the 36th Iraqi journalist to

be killed since the start of the war. His friend Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

explains how, in the postwar carnage, his fellow countrymen have

become the softest targets

 

Monday September 26, 2005

The Guardian

 

I had been dreading this moment for weeks, but I knew it would come

inevitably. The night before leaving for Baghdad; preparing for yet

another trip to that doomed city to report on yet more violence. For

weeks at a time, I had lived in denial. I had told myself, no, it's

not happening; no, I am not going back there. I have had enough, I am

not going back to Iraq. But then I gave in, I started assuring my

worried friends that I would be safe there - after all, it's not that

dangerous.

 

Last Monday night I sat, sheepishly, in my bedroom, packing my bags. I

was drowning in depression - a mixture of fear and anxiety smouldering

in my guts. I wanted to distract myself, so I started going through my

favourite bedtime routine: checking the wires for the latest pictures

from Iraq. What atrocity had I missed that day by hiding in London?

 

I soon came across an out-of-focus image of a policeman lifting a

cover to show a dead body lying in a hospital morgue. It was the sort

of photograph I had seen a hundred times before. Then I read the

caption: " A policeman lifts ... the body of Fakher Haidar al-Tamimi ... "

 

My heart stopped and my eyes started watering. It can't be Fakher, I

told myself, and started to frantically search the web for more

details. Seeing his byline on a New York Times story from the day

before, I was briefly reassured. But then I read the story of his

death on the same website.

 

" An Iraqi journalist and photographer working for the New York Times

in Basra was found dead early Monday after being abducted from his

home by a group of armed men wearing masks and claiming to be police

officers, " read the report. (why would Iraqi police want to murder a

liberal reporter and why would Iraqi police wear masks???)

 

" The journalist, Fakher Haidar, 38, was found with his hands bound and

a bag over his head in a deserted area on the outskirts of Basra, in

southern Iraq, hours after being taken from his house in that city. A

relative who viewed his body in the city morgue said he had at least

one bullet-hole in his head and bruises on his back as if he had been

beaten. "

 

I finished the article and started to search again. I soon found

another picture of him on the web: Fakher, standing next to a

cameraman in Basra with his most distinctive feature - his big smile -

on full display. Fakher always smiled and always shook your hand

firmly, a small notebook in his other hand. He was the sole authority

on anything that happened in Basra. Journalists from all over the

world would seek Fakher's help and insider's knowledge on the south of

the country. He knew everybody and everything.

 

Because of his big smile, shadowed by a huge, bushy moustache wildly

out of proportion with his gaunt face, Basra always felt safe to me

when I was with him. I saw him for the last time two months ago. We

were in Baghdad, in a dark street outside the fortified castles of one

of the western newspapers. He looked wary, but still forced a thin smile.

 

One of the things that made him such a good journalist was his near

obsession with details. I once called him to ask about some rumours

that were circulating of clashes between rival tribes in Basra. He

told me the story, the numbers of people fighting, the weapons, the

time. I had to remind him, apologetically, that I was interested in

writing a few hundred words about the battle, not a book.

 

Fakher is one of 56 journalists to be killed in Iraq since the war

started. He is also the 36th Iraqi journalist to be killed, according

to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Last Wednesday

Ahlam Youssef became number 37. An engineer working for the Iraqi TV

network, she was gunned down in Mosul with her husband.

 

" With the foreign press unable to move around freely for fear of

attack, Iraqis have become the eyes and ears of the world in this

conflict, " reads a statement by CPJ Executive Ann Cooper on their

website. " The recent violence is threatening to cut off this critical

source of information. "

 

As reporting from Iraq is becoming almost impossible, new ground rules

have been set for most of the foreign media. Apart from a handful of

journalists, everyone goes out in armed convoys, if they go out at

all. If you are six feet tall, fair-haired and stupid enough to come

to Baghdad, then you might as well stick to the hotel swimming pool or

your agency fortress, and the occasional trip embedded with the US

Army. Instead you can count on your Iraqi employees to go out and get

you the story.

 

A mixture of guilt, responsibility and ambition keeps driving Iraqi

journalists to push the limits a bit further every time. The

intoxication you get from reporting the truths after so many decades

of lies is indescribable. You feel you can tell the world what is

really happening, but you also feel that you are safe because of the

way you look, because of your scruffy beard or your moustache. But far

from being immune, the Iraqis are the ones getting killed.

 

Iraqi journalists, like local journalists all over the world, don't

have the luxury of leaving the country every few weeks at the end of

their stint. The few who do get to leave the country end up like

refugees, drinking heavily in London pubs before being dragged back

into the inferno.

 

The idea of independent Iraqi journalism is being killed only two

years after it was born, a little of it dying with each of these brave

37 people. Iraqi journalists are being killed by the Americans, the

insurgents, the militias and the police. They are often intimidated

and threatened by anyone who doesn't like their coverage. There are no

ground rules for them; they won't be allowed the luxuries of the fast

car and the bodyguard, and they often have houses and families in the

local area. They can be located easily, which is why they are often in

the firing line.

 

News agencies are dependent on native journalists covering events in

their local towns, where even Iraqis from another city cannot go.

Those people are left there to fend for themselves, vulnerable in the

midst of the insurgents. Americans often consider them to be

cooperating with the insurgency or insurgents themselves, especially

if they work for an Arab news channel. If they are not shot dead in

fighting, they can end up in American custody.

 

This is not a phenomenon unique to Iraq. Local journalists are killed

all over the world, from Colombia and the Philippines to the Lebanon.

The difference is that " the Iraq war " is the biggest story in the

world right now, and Iraqi photographers, cameramen and reporters are

all under pressure from their bosses - not to mention themselves - to

deliver something that is becoming increasingly impossible to deliver.

 

How can you establish a free media in such fear and anarchy? How can

you expect thugs with Kalashnikovs to respect the media?

 

When, in August, the American journalist Steven Vincent was killed in

Basra, his death was widely reported, and newspapers around the world

used the occasion to discuss the horrible militia killings in the

south. When Fakher was murdered, apart from the New York Times story,

his death barely merited a mention.

 

 

 

Journalists in danger

30.08.2005: Press groups demand release of Iraqi cameraman

26.08.2005: No special treatment for journalists in Iraq, says US

20.05.2005: I never said US tried to kill reporters, says ex-CNN boss

03.05.2005: Journalist death toll worst since 1955

28.04.2005: Captive journalists may still be alive

27.04.2005: Kidnappers threaten to execute Romanians

08.04.2005: CBS cameraman shot by US troops

29.03.2005: Romanian journalists kidnapped in Iraq

07.03.2005: Italian hostage accuses US

18.02.2005: Journalist group calls US to account over Iraq

16.02.2005: Kidnapped journalist makes video plea for freedom

04.02.2005: Italian reporter kidnapped in Iraq

09.02.2005: Journalist killed with son in Iraq

04.05.2004: Media death toll highest for a decade

27.08.2004: Media war toll rises

18.01.2005: Do more to protect journalists, governments told

18.01.2005: Journalists' killers 'not being brought to justice'

International News Safety Institute