|
Biased Kirkuk Media Inflame Tension
2.10.2007
By IWPR reporters in Kirkuk (ICR No. 234)
|
|
|
|
City’s rival groups use their respective media as
propaganda weapons.
October
2, 2007
Kirkuk, Iraq's border with Kurdistan region.
News organisations aligning themselves with
ethnic-based and religious parties are inflaming
tensions in Kirkuk by pushing the agendas of those
they represent.
Kirkuk journalists and residents complain that the
media often presents biased reports that create
discord among the city’s diverse population.
Media critics maintain that rather than writing in
the public’s interest, Arab, Turkoman and Kurdish
media organisations in Kirkuk tend to represent the
views of the groups they back - and, in doing so,
are fuelling the conflicts that are fracturing city.
"There is no newspaper in Kirkuk that tells the
truth, and the media is generally responsible for
escalating feelings of malice and hatred,” said
Nariman Sadiq, a teacher in a girls’ intermediate
school.
Miqdad Mustafa, who has served as editor of several
Kirkuk newspapers, agrees.
"The newspapers issued through political parties
have narrow views and don’t address general Iraqi
issues. They deal with ethnic or sectarian affairs.”
At the heart of the conflict lies a power struggle
for control of the city.
In the 1980s, Kirkuk’s sizeable Kurdish and Turkoman
populations shrank when former president Saddam
Hussein began an “Arabisation” campaign to push
thousands of Kurdish and Turkoman families out of
the province.
They were replaced with Arabs who were also given
the land and jobs of those Saddam expelled.
The government is now grappling with how to move the
Arab settlers back to their places of origin, while
bringing back the non-Arab families removed decades
ago.
In the meantime, Kurdish parties in the city are
using their media to call for the Arab settlers to
leave Kirkuk and for a referendum to be held by the
end of the year to decide whether the central or the
Kurdish government should govern the province.
The Kurdish press regularly dedicates entire pages
to calls for the referendum.
However, Many Arab parties and their news
organisations want the referendum delayed, and some
have encouraged Arab settlers to stay. Some of the
leading Turkoman media, which are aligned with
Turkoman parties supported by Turkey, also demand a
postponement and are critical of the Kurdish
authorities.
"There is an independent media, but it is weak due
to the tense situation of Kirkuk. Therefore, the
media coverage is shallow and inaccurate," said a
journalist who asked not to be named.
In press conferences, for example, Arab newspapers
quote only the Arab speakers and overlook the
others. When the authorities say a suicide bomber
was Arab, Arab newspapers often won’t include that
part of the news. The same is true for other
communities.
The media conflicts reflect and fuel the growing
frictions in Kirkuk, where neighbourhoods are
segregated “and are distinctly hostile to members of
whatever community happens to be the minority”,
according to an April 2007 report on Kirkuk by the
International Crisis Group.
"Even if there are independent media, those who work
in and run them are inclined to support their own
ethnic group,” said Yousif Jaf, director of Islamic
Union TV. “Arabs don't write against Arabs and
Turkoman don't criticise Turkoman. The same thing
goes for the Kurds.”
Many journalists and analysts do not dispute that
the press enjoys more freedom than it did under
Saddam, but they argue that news organisations are
not acting responsibly.
One journalist expressed his frustration with
working for party-dominated media group.
"I’m a follower of the Kurdistan Democratic Party,
and this party has its politics and policies.
Therefore I'm shackled. I’m not a free journalist,"
said Jumaa Jabari, editor-in-chief of al-Shafaq
publishing house that issues several Kurdish
language publications.
In its April report, the International Crisis Group
noted that political debates in Kirkuk “are fanned
by overheated media campaigns by all concerned”.
It encouraged all parties to “reduce inflammatory
rhetoric in public addresses and the media and agree
to use dialogue and consensus as essential bases for
resolving the Kirkuk dispute”.
But the political conflict has turned bloody, with
al-Qaeda exploiting divisions by detonating massive
car and truck bombs in Kirkuk.
Kocher Kirkuki, a journalist, says the media will
not preach coexistence as long as ethnic tensions
persist, "The more conflict there is over the city
of Kirkuk, the more extreme the media will be."
Source: iwpr net
* Kirkuk city is a
Kurdish city and it lies just
south border of the Kurdistan autonomous region and
it is not under the full control of Kurdistan
Regional Government administration, its population
is a mix of majority Kurds and minority of Arabs,
Turkmen.
The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein forced
over 250,000 Kurdish residents to give up their
homes to Arabs in the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city
and the region's oil industry.
Based on Iraq's Constitution a referendum is to be
held in late 2007 to decide whether the oil-rich
Kurdish province should be annexed to the safe
semiautonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north.
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 