(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has called on the Iraqi authorities to rapidly explain the arrest of Ibrahim Ahmed Salma, 36, a cameraman with the US agency Associated Press Television News (APTN). Salma was arrested in Baghdad on 21 May 2005. “The methods of arresting Iraqi journalists are brutal and abusive,” the organisation said. Salma’s brother told […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has called on the Iraqi authorities to rapidly explain the arrest of Ibrahim Ahmed Salma, 36, a cameraman with the US agency Associated Press Television News (APTN). Salma was arrested in Baghdad on 21 May 2005.
“The methods of arresting Iraqi journalists are brutal and abusive,” the organisation said.
Salma’s brother told RSF’s correspondent in Iraq that police had raided al-Hurriyah district in western Baghdad at around midnight (local time) on 21 May and rounded up a number of residents. Police also entered Salma’s family home and roughed him up before forcing him to go with them, despite his protests and presentation of his press card.
An APTN spokesman told RSF on the phone that the agency was in contact with the authorities to try to discover the reasons for the sudden arrest. It is not yet known whether the cameraman was arrested in connection with this work.
“It is not the first time that police have burst into the home of a cameraman, this time in the middle of the night, and without any explanation,” said RSF. “A similar thing happened in recent police raids when cameramen with British news agency Reuters and German television Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen were arrested and detained.”
“This latest arrest is all the more worrying since we have no information about where the journalist is being held and his family has had no news of him. We urge the Iraqi authorities to quickly explain why he has been arrested and where he is being detained,” the organisation said.
