Compiled by Greg White
Aug. 18 (AGR) -- The Iraqi government attempted to impose a
news blackout in the conflict-ridden city of Najaf, forcing most journalists
out of the city while threatening others.
On Aug. 16, journalists in Najaf were summoned by the city’s police
chief, Ghalab al-Jazeera. It was said that he wanted to parade some
captured members of Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army, who have launched
their second uprising in four months.
Instead, upon arriving the journalists were advised to leave Najaf.
The police chief claimed that there was rumor of a potential car bombing
targeting journalists.
When most reporters decided to stay, police brandishing rifles arrived
at the Sea Hotel, where most foreign reporters stay, and ordered them
to leave the city. The police said any cameras and cellular phones they
saw would be confiscated.
“I have an order that all journalists must leave Najaf now. Anyone
who does not leave will be arrested,” said a police lieutenant,
who gave his name as Mohammed.
Despite this, around 30 journalists decided to defy the order and remain
in Najaf to cover the conflict.
After only a couple of hours, the first bullets hit the building. One
journalist was hit in the face with shattered glass. Journalists at
the hotel determined that the sniper was almost certainly an Iraqi policeman,
given that the Mahdi army fighters were more than two miles away.
Around nightfall, two marked police cars pulled up at the hotel.
Ten uniformed policemen then walked into the hotel and demanded that
the al-Arabiya, Reuters, and AP correspondents go with them. Journalists
told them they were not there, but the policemen found and arrested
Ahmed al-Salahih, the al-Arabiya correspondent, who the day before had
been given a special exemption from earlier eviction orders.
A uniformed lieutenant then told the assembled journalists and hotel
staff: “We are going to open fire on this hotel. I’m going
to smash it all, kill you all, and I’m going to put four snipers
to target anybody who goes out of the hotel. You have brought it upon
yourselves.”
After pushing and shoving ensued in the foyer of the hotel, another
policeman pointed his gun towards a member of the staff, but was disarmed
by a journalist.
As night fell, shots were fired at the roof of the hotel, from where
reporters file their stories. That was enough for all but a handful
of British and American journalists who remained.
Earlier in the same day, a journalist for the Arabic service of Iran’s
state broadcaster was detained live on television. After firing shots
into the air, Iraqi police arrested the reporter at gunpoint. Moham-mad
Kazem, an Iraqi correspondent of Iran’s Al-Alam channel, had been
conducting a live interview from a Najaf rooftop.
The attempt to drive journalists from Najaf came as US marines -- supported
by the nascent Iraqi army -- stepped up the pressure on Sadr, whose
forces remain in control of Najaf’s old city and sacred shrine
to the Imam Ali.
After US marine commanders last week issued a hawkish threat “to
finish this fight that the Moqtada militia started,” the Iraqi
prime minister Iyad Allawi moved swiftly to defuse alarm even among
his own senior government officials, reassuring Iraqis: “The holy
shrine will remain safe from all attacks that could possibly harm its
sacredness.”
The Iraqi government is acutely sensitive to the maelstrom that would
erupt if the shrine here to be damaged, and the media crackdown may
be an attempt to limit the negative publicity should it be hit during
any military operation.
Concerns about the interim government’s commitment to freedom of
the press were sparked Aug. 7 when officials order the Baghdad office
of the pan-Arab television station Al-Jazeera closed. A constitution
endorsed by the members of Iraq’s now disbanded Governing Council
in March includes protections for freedom of speech.
The Paris-based media organization, Reporters Without Borders, has criticized
the decision to ask journalists to leave the city. The watchdog group
said the move was “a serious blow to press freedom” and expressed
concern about “persistent episodes of censorship in Iraq.”
Sources: Agence France-Presse, Associated
Press, BBC, Financial Times, Reuters, Telegraph (UK)
