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Kurdish journalist killed near northern
Iraqi city of Kirkuk
22.7.2008
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July
22, 2008
Kirkuk, Iraq's border with Kurdistan region,
— Gunmen killed a Kurdish journalist near the
northern city of Kirkuk, a police official said
Tuesday.
Soran Mama Hama, a reporter for the Kurdish-language
magazine Leven, was shot late Monday in the Rasheed
Awa village, where many Kurds were forced to
relocate when Saddam Hussein sent thousands of Arabs
into the oil-rich Kirkuk area to dilute the presence
of Kurds and others.
Kirkuk police Brig. Sarhat Qadir said the motive for
the slaying of the 23-year-old journalist was not
immediately known.
The head of the Kurdish Journalists Union in Kirkuk,
Latif Satih Faraj, blamed the killing on gangs
seeking to silence reporters who want to expose
corruption.
"This criminal act is to halt the free speech of
independent journalists in Kirkuk," he said. "If the
government can't protect Kurdish journalists in
Kirkuk, we might advise them to withdraw from this
city."
Kirkuk city is historically a Kurdish city
and it lies just south border of the Kurdistan
autonomous region, the population is a mix of
majority Kurds and minority of Arabs, Christians and
Turkmen. lies 250 km northeast of Baghdad. Kurds
have a strong cultural and emotional attachment to Kirkuk,
which they call "the Kurdish Jerusalem."
Kurds see the area as part of their historical
homeland and are pushing the government to hold a
referendum in Kirkuk on whether to join the
semiautonomous Kurdistan region. Kurdish objections,www.ekurd.net
meanwhile, are blocking
parliament from clearing the way for important
provincial elections scheduled for later this year.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists
says at least 129 journalists and 50 media support
workers have been killed since the U.S. invasion in
2003,www.ekurd.net
not including the most
recent death.
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution is related to
the normalization of the situation in Kirkuk city
and other disputed areas.
The article also calls for conducting a census to be
followed by a referendum to let the inhabitants
decide whether they would like Kirkuk to be annexed
to the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region or having
it as an independent province.
These stages were supposed to end on December 31,
2007, a deadline that was later extended to six
months to end in July 2008.
The former regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
had 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.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, AP |
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