Media
Under Growing Siege
By Dahr Jamail &
Ali al-Fadhily
12 January, 2007
Inter
Press Service
BAGHDAD, Jan. 10
(IPS) - The U.S. administration continues to tout Iraq as a
shining example of democracy in the Middle East, but press freedom in
Iraq has plummeted since the beginning of the occupation.
Repression of free speech
in Iraq was extreme already under the regime of Saddam Hussein. The
2002 press freedom index of the watchdog Reporters Without Borders ranked
Iraq a dismal130th. The 2006 index pushes Iraq down to 154th position
in a total of 168 listed countries, though still ahead of Pakistan,
Nepal, Saudi Arabia, China and Iran. North Korea is at the bottom of
the table.
The index ranks countries
by how they treat their media, looking at the number of journalists
who were murdered, threatened, had to flee or were jailed by the state.
The end of Saddam's dictatorship
had for a while brought hope of greater press freedom. More than 200
new newspapers and a dozen television channels opened. The hope did
not last even weeks.
"We were overwhelmed
by the change that accompanied what we thought was the liberation of
our country," journalist Said Ali who had earlier been arrested
many times for criticising Saddam's regime told IPS. "I was arrested
then for criticising low-ranking officials, and that was why I did not
stay in jail long. The change of system in 2003 brought me hope of a
better situation, but it proved false."
First, journalists began
to face the danger of getting shot in the streets by nervous U.S. soldiers.
Many journalists were killed in such firing. Later they began to face
exile, arrest and bans on reporting after they began to expose abuses
against Iraqi civilians. Journalists were targeted also for reporting
the growing resistance to the occupation.
Order 65 of the "100
Orders" penned by former U.S. administrator in Iraq L. Paul Bremer
established a communications and media commission. Under the order passed
Mar. 20, 2004 the commission had complete control over licensing and
regulating telecommunications, broadcasting, information services and
all other media establishments.
On Jun. 28, 2004 when the
United States supposedly handed power to a "sovereign" interim
government, Bremer simply passed on the authority to U.S.-installed
interim prime minister Ayad Allawi, who had longstanding ties with the
CIA and the British intelligence service MI6. These orders have since
been incorporated into the Iraqi constitution.
Within days of the "handover"
of power to the interim Iraqi government, security forces raided and
shut down the Baghdad office of al-Jazeera Arabic satellite channel.
The network was banned from
reporting out of Iraq initially for a month, but the ban was then extended
"indefinitely", and remains in place today. In November 2004
the Iraqi government announced that any al-Jazeera journalist found
reporting in Iraq would be detained.
Others were picked on too.
"My friend Sophie-Anne Lamouf, a French journalist who was covering
Fallujah events from her hotel in Baghdad was exiled," an Iraqi
journalist told IPS. "I could not believe going back to the dark
ages was possible, but it is true."
Other journalists say resistance
groups and criminal gangs are the biggest threat today. Another threat
to media workers has been abduction either for ransom or to draw international
attention to the kidnappers' cause.
"The worst thing that
happens to a journalist in Iraq is the fighters' opinion that some of
us are CIA spies," Iraqi journalist Maki al-Nazzal told IPS. "This
would definitely lead to thorough investigations and sometimes has led
to death."
During the siege of Fallujah
in April 2004, 12 foreign journalists reported freely and left safely.
But the situation changed soon afterwards. Under truce negotiations
during that siege, U.S. forces asked leaders of the city to expel al-Jazeera
journalists as part of a cease-fire agreement.
In September this year, the
Iraqi government shut down the Baghdad bureau of al-Jazeera's competitor
al-Arabiya. And on Jan. 1 this year, the Baghdad office of al-Sharqiya
satellite channel which broadcasts from Dubai was ordered closed by
the Iraqi government on grounds of "inciting sectarianism"
following the Dec. 30 execution of Saddam Hussein. A news reader had
appeared wearing black mourning clothes.
All non-Iraqi journalists
now base themselves in well-protected hotels. For fear of resistance
fighters, criminal gangs, the U.S. military or death squads, most never
leave the hotels. When they do, they go "embedded" with the
U.S. military.
According to the U.S. based
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 92 journalists and 37 media
support workers have been killed in Iraq since the occupation began
in March 2003. Reporters Without Borders says at least 94 journalists
and 45 media assistants have been killed since then.
Among the dead was IPS journalist
Alaa Hassan who was shot and killed by armed men as he drove to work
Jun. 28 this year.
Reporters Without Borders
added that Iraq was one of the world's worst marketplaces for hostages,
with at least 38 journalists kidnapped in three years.
The Committee to Protect
Journalists reports that at least 14 journalists have been killed by
the U.S. military. Many Arab media organisations say that number is
far higher.
Death squads are now another
growing threat to the media. The al-Shaabiya satellite channel bureau
was attacked by death squads last year. The company chairman and many
members of the staff were killed.
(Ali al-Fadhily is our Baghdad correspondent. Dahr Jamail is our specialist
writer who has spent eight months reporting from inside Iraq and has
been covering the Middle East for several years.)
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