(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned a shooting attack in which Mouthana Ibrahim, a reporter with the satellite television station Al-Arabiya, was injured on 29 May 2005 in the northern city of Mosul. RSF also noted that Hussein Al Shimari, a reporter with the satellite television station Al-Diyar, was released on 30 May. “Iraqi journalists are […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned a shooting attack in which Mouthana Ibrahim, a reporter with the satellite television station Al-Arabiya, was injured on 29 May 2005 in the northern city of Mosul. RSF also noted that Hussein Al Shimari, a reporter with the satellite television station Al-Diyar, was released on 30 May.
“Iraqi journalists are increasingly the targets of attacks or the victims of clashes,” RSF said. “We deplore this shooting attack in Mosul, which targeted Ibrahim and his family. The employees of Al-Arabiya are too often being attacked and should be able to do their work as journalists freely.”
Ibrahim was driving in his car with several members of family when he came under fire from gunmen and was hit three times.
The deadliest attack ever against Al-Arabiya was a car bomb that went off in a parking lot outside its Baghdad studios on 30 October 2004, killing five of its employees. An unknown Islamist group calling itself “Saraya Al-Chouhada Al Jihadiya fil Iraq” (Jihadist Martyrs Brigades in Iraq) claimed responsibility the next day in a statement whose authenticity could never be verified.
In another development, reporter Al Shimari was released on 30 May. He had been arrested on 9 April in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, on suspicion of collaborating with insurgents. Al-Diyar’s editor-in-chief said Al Shimari was reportedly tortured by the Iraqi military during his detention. He was not allowed to contact his family, who received no news of him during the time he was held.
RSF believes that at least six other journalists are still being held in Iraq. On 5 May, United States (US) army spokesman Colonel Steve Bylan told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that nine journalists employed by a total of seven Western news media were currently detained, and that some of them had been held “for several months” in US or Iraqi detention centres.
In a 6 May letter, RSF asked General John Abizaid, the commander of the US forces in Iraq, to release the names of all the journalists held. The organisation also urged the US military to release Iraqi cameraman Abdel Amir Hussein, who works for CBS News in Mosul and who was arrested on 5 April. Hussein was reportedly transferred to Abu Ghraib prison on 22 April.
