Iraq / Middle East & North Africa

News organizations step up help for journalists who encounter trauma.

New York, May 2, 2005—A March 4 shooting in Baghdad in which U.S. forces killed Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari and wounded Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena and agent Andrea Carpani might have been avoided if the military had used basic warning measures such as signs and speed bumps to alert civilians to the presence of…

The Five Most Murderous Countries for Journalists

MAY 2005 Posted October 18, 2005 Samir Mohammed Noor, Reuters IMPRISONED Reuters reported that its freelance television cameraman Noor was arrested by Iraqi troops at his home in the northern town of Tal Afar in May 2005 and was ordered detained indefinitely by the CRRB, which oversees detentions in Iraq.

New York, April 26, 2005–The Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement today in response to press reports that a U.S.-led inquiry has cleared U.S. troops of wrongdoing in a March 4 shooting in which Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari was killed and Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena wounded. Italian officials have disputed the findings,…

APRIL 23, 2005 Posted: April 25, 2005 Saleh Ibrahim, APTN KILLED—CONFIRMED Ibrahim was killed by gunfire near the city’s al-Yarmouk Circle, the scene of an earlier explosion that he and his brother-in-law, AP photographer Mohamed Ibrahim, had gone to cover, according to The Associated Press. The AP said Mohamed Ibrahim suffered shrapnel wounds to the…

April 22, 2005, New York—The captors of three Romanian journalists and a translator threatened to kill their prisoners within four days unless Romania withdraws its troops from Iraq, according to a videotape that was broadcast today on the Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera. The video, which aired without sound, showed reporter Ovidiu Ohanesian, of the daily…

April 22, 2005, New York—The captors of three Romanian journalists and a translator threatened to kill their prisoners within four days unless Romania withdraws its troops from Iraq, according to a videotape that was broadcast today on the Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera. The video, which aired without sound, showed reporter Ovidiu Ohanesian, of the daily…

APRIL 15, 2005 Updated September 29, 2005 Saman Abdullah Izzedine, Kirkuk TV KILLED—CONFIRMED Unidentified assailants gunned down Izzedine, a 33-year-old news anchor for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)-backed Kirkuk TV as he was driving on the main highway from Kirkuk to Baghdad. Kurdish journalists in Kirkuk said that Izzedine’s car was fired on by…