106
Journalists Killed In Iraq
By Patrick Cockburn
12 June, 2007
Counterpunch
Sahar
al-Haideri, an Iraqi journalist, had received 13 death threats before
she was murdered in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul last week. Her
killing brings to 106 the number of journalists, almost all Iraqi, murdered
in the country since the US invasion in 2003 along with 39 support staff.
Mrs al-Haideri, a 45-year-
old mother of three who worked as a freelancer for many publications,
knew she was likely to die but refused to stop working. "We know
we will be killed soon," she told fellow journalists on the Journal
Iraq online newspaper. She had even stopped using a nom de plume and
wrote under own name with her picture. She said: "I was kidnapped
and threatened while using a pen name, so I decided to write ... with
my real name."
Iraq has become the most
dangerous country in the world for journalists, with Sunni insurgents
routinely targeting journalists, twelve of whom were killed in May alone.
The great majority of those murdered or kidnapped are Iraqis, while
non-Iraqi journalists find it increasingly difficult and dangerous to
operate there.
The Ansar al-Sunna fundamentalist
group claimed responsibility for killing Mrs al-Haideri, saying she
"distorted the reputation of the mujahedin [fighters]." They
had put her name on a death list, that included nine journalists, issued
by the Islamic State of Iraq, the umbrella organization of extreme Jihadi
and Salafi groups. The list was posted in several mosques in Mosul.
"When she arrived at
the area of the ambush the brothers rained her with bullets from their
machineguns killing her instantly," Ansar al-Sunna said. It added
that it had found the telephone numbers of policemen on her mobile phone,
citing this as evidence that "she was an agent for the apostate
police and the government of the apostate [Prime Minister, Nouri] al-Maliki."
When colleagues called Mrs
al-Haideri's phone after she was murdered it was answered by an insurgent
who said "she went to hell".
Mrs al-Haideri knew her home
was being watched because two of the 13 death threats she received were
contained in handwritten letters left at her house, she told the Iraqi
Journalistic Freedom Observatory. The group said Mosul, a largely Sunni
city with a Kurdish minority, had become the most dangerous city in
Iraq for journalists, with 35 killed since 2003.
The fundamentalist Sunni
groups of the Islamic State of Iraq, which includes al-Qa'ida in Iraq,
see all who are not actively on their side as enemies to be eliminated.
They have even murdered low-level government employees such as garbage
collectors and lorry drivers, claiming that they are supporters of the
government. This has led to many Sunnis turning against al-Qa'ida on
the grounds that it is preying on its own community.
Mrs al-Haideri worked for
media that try to fill the vacuum of information about developments
in Iraq. Mrs al-Haideri was working for the Voices of Iraq, the Journal
Iraq, the National Iraqi News Agency and the Institute for War and Peace
Reporting. Iraqis generally rely on television, particularly al-Jazeera
and Iraqi television channels, for their news and entertainment because
of the dangers of going outside to buy a newspaper.
Patrick Cockburn
is the author of 'The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in
Iraq', a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award for best
non-fiction book of 2006.
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