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Talabani: Iraqi journalists are freest in
Middle East
8.11.2006
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November 8, 2006
Asked about restrictions, violence against media,
President Talabani insists Iraqi journalists are
freest in Middle East
Reporters Without Borders met with visiting Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani yesterday in Paris, voicing
concern about the mounting difficulties for
journalists in Iraq including the increasing
violence being targeted at them.
At least 128 journalists and media assistants have
been killed there since the start of the war in
March 2003.
President Talabani said Iraqi journalists were among
the freest in the Middle East. He described a
thriving press with more than 100 dailies and
journalists who are free to criticise the
authorities and government decisions. The new Iraqi
state has never given orders for any journalist to
be killed, he stressed. |
Iraqi
President : Jalal Talabani, a Kurd
Photo: Military |
Reporters Without Borders pointed out that
journalists are facing not only violence but also
many restrictions in the course of their work.
Journalists, mostly Iraqi ones, have been subjected
to curbs on their freedom of movement and
professional freedom, including bans on filming
religious festivities, the army or police, and
members of parliament.
Since the start of the summer, Iraqi Prime Minister
Nuri Al-Maliki has repeatedly threatened to use a
2004 anti-terrorism law to close down media that
“incite violence.”
Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert
Ménard asked President Talabani to ensure that this
law, which provides for long prison terms for
journalists who incite “sedition and sectarianism”
is not applied in a draconian fashion.
Reporters Without Borders also queried the
government’s closure of two privately-owned TV
stations on 5 November after they broadcast images
of demonstrators protesting against Saddam Hussein’s
death sentence.
The organisation asked Talabani to authorise the
reopening of the Baghdad bureau of the pan-Arab
satellite TV station Al-Jazeera, which has been
closed since August 2004.
Talabani said negotiations were under way with the
station’s regional director to work out a
“compromise.” He said “many Baathists” worked at the
station and that it was “hostile to Iraq.”
Finally, Reporters Without Borders brought up the
case of French journalist Frédéric Nérac, who
disappeared without a trace near the southern city
of Basra during the first few days of the war. After
voicing fears about Nérac’s fate, President Talabani
said one of his priorities was to secure Iraq and
thereby ensure that journalists can work more
freely.
A plan for securing Baghdad, the deadliest city for
civilians, was under study, he added.
rsf org
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