(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced shock over the gruesome murders of two Iraqi journalists, whose throats were reportedly cut by armed men while they were traveling toward the holy city of Kerbala, south of Baghdad. The two latest victims were Najem Abed Khodair, who worked for the independent daily newspapers “Al-Madaa” and “Tariq al-Shaab”, and […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced shock over the gruesome murders of two Iraqi journalists, whose throats were reportedly cut by armed men while they were traveling toward the holy city of Kerbala, south of Baghdad.
The two latest victims were Najem Abed Khodair, who worked for the independent daily newspapers “Al-Madaa” and “Tariq al-Shaab”, and Ahmad Adam, a poet and writer who contributed to “Al-Madaa” and “Sabah” newspapers. Launched after the start of the war, “Al-Madaa” concentrates on political news.
On 15 May 2005, the Agence France-Presse news agency quoted an Iraqi army officer as saying that the two journalists were heading towards Kerbala, their hometown, when they were stopped near Latifiyah by armed men, who took them to the roadside and cut their throats. After abandoning the bodies, the assailants “fled into the surrounding orchards,” the officer said.
On 16 May, the Iraqi army announced that nine armed men suspected of carrying out the murders were arrested south of Baghdad.
“We are horrified by these murders, we share the grief of the victims’ families and we extend them our full sympathy,” RSF said. “There is no justification for such barbarity.”
RSF said the murders brought the number of journalists and media assistants killed in Iraq since the start of the year to 10, almost half the total number of press victims in all of 2005. In all, 58 journalists and media assistants have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003.
