Media Repression In 'Liberated' Land
By Dahr Jamail
19 November, 2004
Inter Press Service
Journalists
are increasingly being detained and threatened by the U.S.-installed
interim government in Iraq. Media have been stopped particularly from
covering recent horrific events in Fallujah.
The "100 Orders"
penned by former U.S. administrator in Iraq L. Paul Bremer include Order
65 passed March 20 to establish an Iraqi communications and media commission.
This commission has powers to control the media because it has complete
control over licensing and regulating telecommunications, broadcasting,
information services and all other media establishments.
On June 28 when
the United States handed over power to a 'sovereign' Iraqi interim government,
Bremer simply passed on the authority to Ayad Allawi, the U.S.-installed
interim prime minister who has had longstanding ties with the British
intelligence service MI6 and the CIA.
A glaring instance
is the curbs placed on the Qatar-based TV channel al-Jazeera.
Within days of the
'handover' of power to an interim Iraqi government last summer, the
Baghdad office of al-Jazeera was raided and closed by security forces
from the interim government. The network was accused of inaccurate reporting
and banned initially for one month from reporting out of Iraq.
The ban was then
extended "indefinitely." On Tuesday this week the interim
government announced that any al-Jazeera journalist found reporting
in Iraq would be detained.
The al-Jazeera office
in Baghdad had been bombed by a U.S. warplane during the invasion of
March last year. The TV channel had given their exact coordinates to
the Pentagon to avoid such an occurrence. One of their journalists was
killed in the bombing.
Al-Jazeera now broadcasts
a daily apology "because we cannot cover Iraq news well since our
offices have been closed for over three months by orders from the interim
government."
Other instances
of political repression abound. The media commission sent out an order
recently asking news organisations to "stick to the government
line on the U.S.-led offensive in Fallujah or face legal action."
The warning was sent on the letterhead of Allawi.
The letter also
asked media to "set aside space in your news coverage to make the
position of the Iraqi government, which expresses the aspirations of
most Iraqis, clear."
Last week a journalist
for the al-Arabiya network was detained by U.S. forces outside Fallujah
when he attempted to enter the besieged city.
Citing another al-Arabiya
correspondent as its source, the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists
(CPJ) said the Arabic satellite station had lost contact with Abdel
Kader Saadi, a reporter and photographer living and working in the Sunni
Muslim city, on Nov. 11.
French freelance
photographer Corentin Fleury was detained by the U.S. military with
his interpreter, 28 year-old Bahktiyar Abdulla Hadad when they were
leaving Fallujah just before the siege of the city began.
They had worked
in the city for nine days leading up to the siege, and were held for
five days in a military detention facility outside the city.
"They were
very nervous and they asked us what we saw, and looked over all my photos,
asking me questions about them," Fleury told IPS. "They asked
where the weapons were, what the neighborhoods were like, all of this."
Fleury said he had
photographed homes destroyed by U.S. warplanes, and life in the city
leading up to the siege.
"They wanted
information from me regarding the situation in Fallujah, but they have
yet to release my translator," he said. "I made a silly photo
of him holding a sniper rifle, and I think this is why they are holding
him. I've been trying to get information for the last five days on him,
and the French embassy has been trying to get him out, different journalists
he's worked with are sending letters, but there has been no luck so
far."
Dahr Jamail
is one of those very few independent journalists in Iraq. His travel
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