New York, April 9, 2008—The Committee Protect Journalists welcomes an Iraqi judicial committee’s decision to drop legal proceedings against Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, who has been held by U.S. authorities for two years on allegations shrouded in secrecy. The committee ordered that Hussein be freed “immediately” if no other charges were pending, AP reported today.…
New York, April 7, 2008—Five years after a series of U.S. military strikes against media outlets in Baghdad killed three journalists, CPJ calls on the U.S. military to fully investigate the incidents and make its findings public. CPJ also calls on the U.S. military to implement procedures to address the presence of journalists on the…
Jehad Nga, freelance photographer On arriving at the beginning of the war When we arrived in Baghdad, as you can imagine, Baghdad was basically ablaze. The Americans had created a safety zone around the Palestine Hotel; otherwise the city was in a state of anarchy. As you can imagine, every journalist on the face of…
James Glanz, New York Times Baghdad bureau chief On managing the bureau All of us live basically in walled compounds. It’s easy for us to get out in the area of Baghdad. We just go out the door and there we are in the Baghdad commercial district. Usually we’ll have some sort of missions planned…
Bobby Ghosh, Time magazine, world editor On Iraqi staff The journalists arriving in Iraq after that period–let’s say between the spring of 2006 and today–only get to see little slivers of the country, you can see the Green Zone which is not really Iraq, its this sort of strange artificial construct, and you can maybe…
New York, March 14, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder of an Iraqi journalist by at least one unknown gunman in Baghdad on Thursday. Qassim Abdul Hussein al-Iqabi, 36, of the local daily Al-Muwatin (The Citizen) was shot dead in Baghdad’s predominantly Shiite Karradah neighborhood, according to local and international news reports.
New York, February 27, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the loss of Shihab al-Tamimi, head of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, who died today from injuries he sustained from a targeted shooting in Baghdad on Saturday. Jabbar Tarrad al-Shimmari, deputy head of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, told CPJ that al-Tamimi, 74, died from a stroke…