Another
U.S. Military Assault On Media
By Dahr Jamail &
Ali al-Fadhily
24 February, 2007
Inter
Press Service
BAGHDAD, Feb 23 (IPS) - Iraqi
journalists are outraged over yet another U.S. military raid on the
media.
U.S. soldiers raided and
ransacked the offices of the Iraq Syndicate of Journalists (ISJ) in
central Baghdad Tuesday this week. Ten armed guards were arrested, and
10 computers and 15 small electricity generators kept for donation to
families of killed journalists were seized.
This is not the first time
U.S. troops have attacked the media in Iraq, but this time the raid
was against the very symbol of it. Many Iraqis believe the U.S. soldiers
did all they could to deliver the message of their leadership to Iraqi
journalists to keep their mouth shut about anything going wrong with
the U.S.-led occupation.
"The Americans have
delivered so many messages to us, but we simply refused all of them,"
Youssif al-Tamimi of the ISJ in Baghdad told IPS. "They killed
our colleagues, closed so many newspapers, arrested hundreds of us and
now they are shooting at our hearts by raiding our headquarters. This
is the freedom of speech we received."
Some Iraqi journalists blame
the Iraqi government.
"Four years of occupation,
and those Americans still commit such foolish mistakes by following
the advice of their Iraqi collaborators," Ahmad Hassan, a freelance
journalist from Basra visiting Baghdad told IPS. "They (the U.S.
military) have not learned yet that Iraqi journalists will raise their
voice against such acts and will keep their promise to their people
to search for the truth and deliver it to them at any cost."
There is a growing belief
in Iraq that U.S. allies in the current Iraqi government are leading
the U.S. military to raid places and people who do not follow Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki's directions.
"It is our Iraqi colleagues
who pushed the Americans to that hole," Fadhil Abbas, an Iraqi
television producer told IPS. "Some journalists who failed to fake
the truth here are trying hard to silence truth seekers by providing
false information to the U.S. military in order to take advantage of
their stupidity in handling the whole Iraqi issue."
The incident occurred just
two days after the Iraqi Union covering journalists received formal
recognition from the government. The new status allowed the Syndicate
access to its previously blocked bank account, and it had just purchased
new computers and satellite equipment.
"Just at the point when
the Syndicate achieves formal recognition for its work as an independent
body of professionals, the American military carries out a brutal and
unprovoked assault," International Federation of Journalists General
Secretary Aidan White said in a statement. "Anyone working for
media that does not endorse U.S. policy and actions could now be at
risk."
The raid was a "shocking
violation of journalists' rights," White said. "In the past
three years more than 120 Iraqi journalists, many of them Syndicate
members, have been killed, and now their union has been turned over
in an unprovoked act of intimidation."
"The Americans and their
Iraqi government followers are destroying social activities and civil
unions so that no group can oppose their crimes and plans," 55-year-old
lawyer Hashim Jawad of the Iraqi Lawyers Union in Baghdad told IPS.
"The press is our remaining lung to breathe democracy in this country
and now it is being targeted."
The Press Emblem Campaign
(PEC), an independent humanitarian association based in Geneva which
seeks to strengthen legal protection and safety of journalists around
the world also strongly condemned the U.S. military raid.
The media watchdog group
Reporters Without Borders lists at least 148 journalists and media workers
killed in Iraq since the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion in March
2003.
The group also compiles an
annual Press Freedom Index for countries around the world. In 2002,
under Saddam Hussein's rule, Iraq ranked 130. In the 2006 index, Iraq
fell to position 154.
The same index listed the
U.S. at 17 in 2002, a rank that fell to 56 by 2006.
The Brussels Tribunal, a
group of "intellectuals, artists and activists who denounce the...war,"
lists the names, dates and circumstances in which 191 media professionals
of Iraqi nationality have been killed.
The PEC and the other watchdogs
have requested the Iraqi government to launch an immediate inquiry into
the attack.
"I only wish the U.S.
administration and our government would stop lying about freedom in
Iraq," Mansoor Salim, a retired journalist, told IPS. "How
stupid we were to have believed their statements about freedom. I admit
that I was one of the fools."
(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.)