(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is a 28 March 2003 CPJ press release, followed by the organisation’s letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: CPJ SENDS LETTER TO RUMSFELD ABOUT U.S. BOMBING OF IRAQI TV Group continues to monitor reports of missing and detained journalists New York, March 28, 2003-The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is a 28 March 2003 CPJ press release, followed by the organisation’s letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:
CPJ SENDS LETTER TO RUMSFELD ABOUT U.S. BOMBING OF IRAQI TV
Group continues to monitor reports of missing and detained journalists
New York, March 28, 2003-The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) sent a letter today to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld {see below} requesting information about the U.S. bombing of Iraqi state television facilities in Baghdad earlier this week.
The group expressed concern that the Pentagon may have violated international humanitarian law in targeting these facilities and reminded the secretary that broadcast media are protected from attack under the Geneva Conventions and cannot be targeted unless they are used for military purposes.
In our view, wrote CPJ acting director Joel Simon, “the broadcast of propaganda does not constitute a military function.”
In other developments:
* CPJ is concerned about reports that seven Italian journalists are missing after encountering Iraqi forces at a checkpoint near the southern port city of Basra and that the Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera lost contact today with its cameraman in Basra during an attack by British forces on a warehouse. CPJ is investigating both cases, as well as reports that U.S. troops briefly detained journalists in southern Iraq.
Meanwhile, CPJ continues to investigate the whereabouts of Johan Rydeng Spanner, a free-lance photographer with the Danish daily Jyllands Posten; reporter Matt McAllester and photographer Moises Saman, both of New York-based Newsday; free-lance photographer Molly Bingham; and ITN cameraman Fred Nerac and translator Hussein Othman.
* Sources at the Dubai-based Al-Arabiyya satellite channel told CPJ that they had lost contact with three of their journalists. Correspondent Wael Awad, cameraman Talal al-Masri, and technician Ali Safa were embedded with U.S. and coalition troops and had been reported missing for several days while in southern Iraq. They are now safe.
* CPJ is troubled by an incident in which Christian Science Monitor reporter Phillip Smucker was apparently detained by U.S. troops and escorted out of southern Iraq to Kuwait yesterday. Smucker, a veteran foreign correspondent who was also reporting for London’s Daily Telegraph had been traveling in southern Iraq as a non-embed with a U.S. Marine unit. U.S. military authorities were angered by an interview Smucker conducted with CNN in which he described the location of the unit he was with.
Megan Fox, a spokeswoman for the Office of Public Affairs in the Defense Department, said Smucker gave out information that “could harm him and the unit.” She had no information about the duration of his detention or whether or where he may have been released.
Christian Science Monitor editor Paul Van Slambrouck wrote today that the paper had “read the transcript of the CNN interview and it does not appear to us that he disclosed anything that wasn’t already widely available in maps and in U.S. and British radio, newspaper, and television reports in that same news cycle.” Slambrouck added that Smucker had conducted a similar interview with NPR a day earlier without incident.
* Two Iranian journalists-Ali Muntaziri and Abdel Ridda Abassi, on assignment in southern Iraq for Al-Hayat-LBC and Dubai Business Channel-who were detained on Monday, March 24, by Iraqi forces, had traveled to Iraq’s Al-Fao Peninsula by fishing boat that day. Muntaziri told CPJ that the two had mistakenly thought that Al-Fao was under U.S. and coalition forces control. He said that after arriving on the Iraqi side, they were picked up by a group of Iraqis dressed in civilian clothing and were taken by car to a small house where they were accused of being Iranian operatives.
Muntaziri said that during the next several hours, they were taken from house to house and questioned, and that all the people in these civilian homes had weapons. One apparent Iraqi agent threatened to kill them. The journalists said that their equipment was confiscated and they were eventually driven back to a fishing boat and allowed to leave for Iran on Wednesday night.
CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information about press conditions around the globe, visit www.cpj.org.
March 28, 2003
The Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
The Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 20301
Via facsimile: (703) 697-9080
Dear Secretary Rumsfeld:
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to request information about the U.S. bombing of Iraqi state television facilities in Baghdad earlier this week. We are concerned that the Pentagon may have violated international humanitarian law in targeting these facilities.
During the early morning hours of March 26, 2003 (Baghdad time), U.S. and coalition forces struck Iraq’s state-run television facilities, knocking its 24-hour satellite channel, which broadcasts outside the country, off the air for several hours. Domestic television resumed broadcasting later that morning as scheduled, but its signal was reported to be weak. There have been reports that Iraq’s Youth TV is also off the air as a result of the strike. U.S. officials have indicated that television facilities may be targeted again.
The U.S. military maintains that the broadcast facilities targeted were involved in “command and control” functions of the Iraqi military but has yet to provide any specific details.
CPJ reminds you that broadcast media are protected from attack under international humanitarian law and cannot be targeted unless they are used for military purposes. In order for an attack to be justified, it must provide a concrete and direct military advantage. In CPJ’s view, the broadcast of propaganda does not constitute a military function.
We are concerned that U.S. forces may have targeted Iraqi media to halt government propaganda especially coming as it does after Iraqi TV broadcast footage of U.S. POWs and dead American soldiers. The fact that the Iraqi government used state-run television to air these images in possible
violation of the Geneva Conventions does not justify an attack.
Because of the possibility that the attack on Iraqi TV could be cited as a precedent to justify attacks on broadcast facilities in future conflicts, we are requesting that the U.S. government provide a detailed explanation for its decision to target the building and the military purpose behind it.
Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter. We await your reply.
Sincerely,
Joel Simon
Acting Director
CC:
Colin L. Powell, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser
Tommy Franks, Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command
Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense
Victoria Clarke, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs
Recommended Action
Similar appeals can be sent to:The Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
The Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 20301
Fax: +703 697 9080Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
