Ahmad al-Rashid

New York, November 13, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the brutal murder of an Iraqi journalist in Mosul today. Unidentified gunmen shot Muhammad al-Ban, 58, a reporter and cameraman for the privately owned Al-Sharqiya TV, as he was leaving his home in Mosul’s al-Nour neighborhood at around 8 a.m., according to CPJ sources.

New York, November 6, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by the Iraq Interior Ministry’s decision on Sunday to close two Sunni-owned satellite channels indefinitely. Security forces raided Al-Zawraa TV in Baghdad and Saleheddin TV in Tikrit on grounds they were inciting violence in the hours after former leader Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death, according to news reports and CPJ sources.

The privately-owned Saleheddin TV aired live broadcasts of pro-Saddam demonstrations and then opened its phone lines for callers to express their opinions, according to CPJ sources. Police were seeking the station’s owners, Sunni businessmen Hassan Khatab and Abdelrahman Dahash for questioning, a CPJ source said.