Attacks on the Press - Committee to Protect Journalists

attacks on the press in 2009middle east and north africa: iraqa licensing system on journalists.Faruq Abdulqadir, the minister of communications, conceded in a July interviewwith U.S. government-funded Al-Hurra television that the governmentplanned to regulate online publications. In a subsequent statement, the Ministryof Communications said vaguely that it planned to block “some Web sites thataffect the manners and the security of the country.” Majeed Hameed, directorgeneral for the ministry’s Internet section, said in the statement that the governmentwould consider Web monitoring tactics used by Saudi Arabia and theUnited Arab Emirates as models. To varying degrees, both countries have restrictiveonline regulations.Journalists spoke out against government intimidation. In June, CPJ and JFOsent a letter to al-Maliki expressing concerns about increasing official harassment.In the first six months of the year, the two organizations documented more than70 cases of harassment and assault against journalists in Iraq. On August 14,hundreds of journalists, academics, and press freedom advocates demonstratedon Baghdad’s Al-Mutanabi Street to protest increasing government restrictions,according to local and international press reports.The press faced heightened restrictions even in the relatively secure northernprovinces controlled by the Kurdish Regional Government. A press law thattook effect in October 2008 was lauded at the time for omitting prison penaltiesfor press offenses such as defamation, but the language of the measure wasvague enough to be open to different interpretations in court. CPJ documentedsix cases in which police and judges in Kurdistan briefly jailed journalists underthe 1969 Iraqi penal code. In a letter sent in May to Nechirvan Barzani, then theKurdistan Regional Government’s prime minister, CPJ expressed concern overpoor implementation of the Kurdish press law.Jassim Muhammad, a reporter and a director of the media division of theKurdistan Islamic Union in Zakho, an Islamist party with close ties to the MuslimBrotherhood, spent six days in January in a prison run by the Asaish, or securityservice, after he briefly launched a television station without a license, he toldCPJ. Asaish charged him under the 1969 Iraqi penal code for “disobeying officialorders”; Muhammad was acquitted in May.In another case, Kawa Garmiani, a reporter with Khawn magazine, spent fivedays in prison in January in connection with defamation lawsuits filed by governmentagencies in Kalar, southeast of Sulaymaniyah. He had quoted sourcesas saying that the grounds of a Kalar hospital had become a favorite spot for aromantic rendezvous, he told CPJ.A Kurdish court found that a local newspaper defamed national and regionalleaders when it printed a translated version of a critical report by a U.S. analyst in2008. In March, a court in Sulaymaniyah fined Hawlati, the region’s most popularnewspaper, 10 million dinars (US$8,653) and Abid Aref, its former editor, 3 milliondinars (US$2,590). The report, by Michael Rubin of the Washington-basedAmerican Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, was highly critical ofIraqi President Jalal Talabani, who also headed the Patriotic Union of Kurdistanparty, and Massoud Barzani, president of Iraqi Kurdistan. Rubin questioned U.S.strategic relations with Iraqi Kurdistan, pointing out undemocratic governanceand rampant corruption.In April, Kurdish regional authorities charged three people with plotting tomurder Ahmed Mira, editor-in-chief of the critical Sulaymaniyah-based Livinmagazine, Mira and his lawyer, Othman Sidiq, told CPJ. The news of the plotcame a few months after unidentified gunmen killed Soran Mama Hama, a Livinreporter in Kirkuk. In August, a criminal court in Sulaymaniyah found two suspectsguilty of plotting to kill Mira and sentenced them to six years in prison.One journalist was seriously wounded by U.S. military fire in January. HadilEmad, 25, an editor for Biladi television, was on her way home from work whenshe was shot near a checkpoint at Al-Jadriyya Bridge in Baghdad, according tolocal and international news reports. A U.S. military statement claimed she had“acted suspiciously.”The U.S. military continued to hold a freelance photographer withoutcharge or due process. Ibrahim Jassam was detained during a September 2008raid at his home in Mahmoodiya, south of Baghdad, according to local andinternational news reports. In November 2008, the Iraqi Central CriminalCourt ruled there was no evidence to hold Jassam and ordered the U.S. militaryto release him. U.S. military authorities rejected the court order, sayingthat Jassam “continued to pose a serious threat to the security and stability ofIraq.” Chief of Public Affairs Maj. Neal Fisher told CPJ that Jassam and about15,000 other detainees would be released in accordance with a “ranking basedon their assessed threat” level. CPJ sought Jassam’s release in two letters toU.S. President Barack Obama. Over the course of the war, the U.S. militaryhas detained at least 13 journalists for prolonged periods without charge, accordingto CPJ research. All of the others were released without charges beingsubstantiated.The journalist who caused an international spectacle when he threw a pairof shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush was convicted of assault againsta public official. Muntadhar al-Zaidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia satellitetelevision, was sentenced to a one-year prison term in February. Al-Zaidi,who tossed the shoes during a December 2008 press conference, was releasedin September for good behavior. Al-Zaidi told the press that he had sufferedbeatings, whippings, electric shocks, and simulated drowning at the hands ofofficials and guards.220221