H.E. Nouri Kamal al-Maliki
Prime Minister
Republic of Iraq
c/o Embassy of the Republic of Iraq
Washington, DC 20036
Fax: (202) 462-5066
Your Excellency:
One of the extraordinary tales of courage emerging from the war in Iraq is the determination of Iraqi journalists to continue to report the news in spite of the appalling toll of murders that is cutting them down at an ever faster rate. In the last seven weeks, fourteen journalists have been murdered in Iraq.
According to Reporters Without Borders, an organization that defends journalists and has ample research resources, the number of journalists and their assistants killed in Iraq since 2003 is approaching two hundred. Some have been killed by so-called friendly fire, but most have been murdered because of their work. Most of them, of course, are Iraqi citizens. Among the fourteen journalists recently killed, two worked for the U.S. TV network, ABC, one worked for Associated Press Television News, and one for The New York Times. But all were Iraqi citizens and quite young.
Even more deaths have occurred among Iraqi journalists working for Iraqi media. Since the end of May, three journalists working for the news agency, Aswat Al-Irak, have died. Two correspondents for Baghdad TV were kidnapped and murdered in June. The TV station’s headquarters was attacked in April, resulting in the deaths of two and injuries to nine others.
Not only did the journalists die, but in some cases so did their families and companions. When gunmen killed Abdel-Rahman Al-Issawa, a professor of journalism at Baghdad University and contributor to several newspapers, they also killed seven members of his family, including his wife, son, mother and father. The father of Doha Al-Haddad, an Al-Arabiya business journalist who had been receiving threatening phone calls, was kidnapped and murdered on May 31.
The emergence of a diverse and vibrant free press has been one of the few positive results achieved in Iraq since 2003. It is quite extraordinary that journalists continue to carry out their vital function of informing the public inspite of the terrible risks they take. They have done so without any encouragement or protection from your government. In fact, you seem to have raised obstacles in their path.
We realize, of course, that the conditions that exist in Iraq today make it difficult for your government to provide protection for anyone. However, it is as vital for the free press to function in Iraq as it is for a free government, for one can not do without the other. Therefore, we of the Overseas Press Club of America urge you to adopt measures to assure the press a measure of the protection you furnish you own government officials, and that you declare your solidarity with the press and make every effort to pursue the perpetrators of these crimes.
Respectfully yours,
Jeremy Main
Kevin McDermott
Freedom of the Press Committee
cc:
General David Petraeus
Commander, Coalition Task Force 7
Baghdad, Iraq
APO AE 09316
Washington, DC 20036
Fax: (703)270-0270
Honorable Robert Gates
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301
Fax: (703)695-4299
H.E. Jalal Talabani
President
Republic of Iraq
c/o Embassy of the Republic of Iraq
1801 P Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Fax: (202)462-5066
H.E. Ryan C. Crocker
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq
Embassy of the Unites States of America
Baghdad
Iraq
BaghdadPressOffice@state.gov
Ambassador Hamid Al Bayti
Permanent Representative
Permanent Mission of the Republic of Iraq to the United Nations
14 East 79th Street
New York, NY 10021
Fax: (212)772-1794
David Schlesinger
Editor-in-Chief
Reuters
David.Schlesinger@Reuters.com
News Editor
Al-Jazeera
Qatar
newseditor@aljazeera.net
Hassan Fatah Pasha
Editor
Iraq Today
hassan@iraq-today.net
Mr. John Burns
Baghdad Bureau Chief
The New York Times
burns@nytimes.com