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Kurdish journalists under increasing
threat: Open letter to Kurdistan President
6.8.2008
By Joel Simon
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August 6, 2008
His Excellency Massoud Barzani, President of
Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq
Office of Kurdistan Regional Government
1634 Eye St. NW, Suite 210
Washington, D.C. 20006
Via facsimile: (202) 637-2723
Dear President Barzani,
The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply
concerned about the wave of threats against
journalists in northern Iraq in the last few weeks.
CPJ has documented an alarming number of cases
recently, ranging from the murder of a journalist to
an attack on another by a mob to at least three
death threats directed at journalists in less than a
month.
The Kurdistan Journalists Syndicate, which has begun
issuing periodic reports on threats against the
press, noted that in the first six months of 2008
there were around 60 cases of killings, attacks,
threats, and lawsuits against journalists in the
region. In addition, at least one journalist has
disappeared since March 2008, they said.
CPJ conducted a two-week fact-finding mission to
Erbil and Sulaimaniyah in October and November 2007
and found that the increasing assertiveness of the
independent press has triggered a spike in
repression over the last three years.
On July 22, Soran Mama Hama, 23, a reporter with the
Sulaimaniyah-based Livin magazine, was shot by
unidentified gunmen in front of his home in Kirkuk,www.ekurd.net
according to news
reports and CPJ interviews. Mama Hama had received
threatening messages before the slaying, local
journalists told CPJ today. He had written articles
critical of local authorities, they said.
On July 25, Yahya Ahmed, 38, a reporter with the
Sulaimaniyah-based Awene newspaper, who had been
injured in a suicide attack while covering a
demonstration in Kirkuk on July 25, was attacked by
an angry mob, he told CPJ. A video was taken by a
colleague and posted on Awene’s Web site. A voice
from the crowd shouts in it, “Kill him! Kill him!”
Ahmed survived the attack, but his equipment,
including his camera and two cell phones, were
destroyed and his press badges taken, he said.
On July 30, Amanj Khalil, 28, a journalist with
Rudaw, an Erbil-based newspaper, escaped an
assassination attempt near his home, he told CPJ. On
July 28, Khalil had received an anonymous phone call
warning him to “either to write an apology” for an
article he had written on July 28 about the
emergence of Ansar al-Islam,www.ekurd.net
or he will “face serious
consequences,” he told CPJ. This was the fourth
threatening call that Khalil has received since
March 2007. He said he believes the threats have
been a direct result of his work.
On July 25, Soran Omar, 30, a contributor to Livin
magazine and editor-in-chief of the Web site
Kurdistan News Daily, received around a dozen phone
calls from four different numbers threatening him to
quit working for Livin or he “will face the same
fate as Soran Mama Hama,” Omar told CPJ.
On July 14, soon after an issue of Livin hit the
newsstand, Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Mira received a
phone call from an unknown person threatening, “You
will pay the price for what you are publishing,”
Mira told CPJ. The magazine had published a story
about one of the main Kurdish parties in that issue,
he said. He said he has also received several
messages calling him a traitor or a spy. Mira told
CPJ that since 2006 Livin has received at least one
threat after publishing each issue of its magazine.
Not one suspect has been prosecuted for killing or
harassing these journalists, according to our
research. While we note that your office has
condemned the killing of Soran Mama Hama, according
to Kurdish news reports, we now urge you to condemn
all threats and attacks on journalists and
immediately launch thorough public investigations to
prosecute those who are behind them. Journalists
working under the threat of violence must have
assurances that your government will use all the
resources at its disposal to ensure that they can
carry out their work.
Thank you for your attention to these urgent
matters. We look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Joel Simon
Executive Director
Copyright, respective author or news agency, The
Committee to Protect Journalists, cpj org
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