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Response to Mariwan Salihi's article
“Iraqi Kurdistan: Land of 1 Million Journalist” 3.6.2010
By Rebin Salar, ekurd.net
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June
3, 2010
A reply to Mariwan Salihi article “Iraqi
Kurdistan: Land of 1 Million Journalist”
In your writing that was posted on eKurd.net, I
noticed that your bad command of the English
language is not helping you to get your view across.
I understood (correct me if I am wrong) that you
were happy about the fact that people in Kurdistan
are becoming opinionated and like to express their
views freely either online or in the newspapers.
You stated that “Kurdish media is currently very
chaotic and needs dire attention to keep it
well-organized”.
A free and democratic media does not need to be
organised by the government. According to Herman, a
democratic media “can be identified by its structure
and functions. In terms of structure, it would be
organized and controlled by ordinary citizens or
their grass roots organisations”. This means that
the popular newspapers in Kurdistan, such as Awene
and Hawlati, are the fundamental steps towards
building democratic media.
Contrary to this, media empires such as Zagros Tv
and Rudaw and Aras Press, which are set up by the
Kurdistan Democratic Party and on the budget of the
Kurdistan Regional Government, will create the tense
situation that we have now in Kurdistan. My favorite
newspaper seller where I buy my daily newspapers in
Sulaimaniyah always tells me that he struggles to
sell the government backed-newspapers such as Rudaw.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party KDP and the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan PUK were distributing all their
newspapers for free during the recent election
campaigns.
You do not realise you are part of the “shocking
fact” that you mention regarding people posting
online. This phenomenon is called blogging and it is
perfectly acceptable. In today’s hi-tech world, any
person, including you, can express their opinions
online. There is no need to regulate the blogosphere
world. Only undemocratic systems regulate peoples’
online activity i.e. North Korea and Iran, and other
undemocratic parts of the world.
It is to my deep regret, that Kurdistan is joining
North Korea and Iran when it comes to freedom of
press. On a visit to Erbil recently, I realised that
the websites of KurdistanPost.com and LvinPress.com,
the former being a discussion forum and the latter a
professional magazine, are both blocked in Erbil and
Duhok, and the rest of KDP-controlled Kurdistan. On
the other hand, I could access websites that
contained information about how to make a Improvised
Explosive Device (IED).
The worrying trend here is that some people give
themselves the right to be called journalists, and
the very same people, deny others to have the same
title.
After all, the name journalist has come from the
word “journal” or “diary”. According to the Oxford
Dictionary, a journalist is a person who keeps a
journal, diary, or other record of daily events.
References:
Herman, Edward (1997) Triumph of the Market: Essays
on Economics, Politics and the Media. Montreal,
Black Rose Books. p.215
Ask Oxford Dictionary - journalist
Rebin Salar, Independent journalist from
Kurdistan/Iraq.
Copyright © 2010 ekurd.net
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