Reporters Without Borders voiced alarm today about the arrests of five journalists in the past two weeks and urged the Iraqi authorities to be more discerning.
"We are very worried about the increase in arrests of local journalists, often without any evidence or for unknown reasons," the press freedom organization said. "Iraqi journalists now have to deal with this new problem, in which their employers are often powerless to act. Both employers and family members must be given an explanation for such arrests."
Reporters Without Borders continued : "We appeal to the Iraqi authorities to be more discerning and restrained, and to not carry out hasty and arbitrary arrests. Some of the police behaviour has been completely unacceptable, such as the beatings given to the Reuters cameraman and two of his assistants, and requests for exorbitant sums of money that are tantamount to extortion."
The organization said it called on the Iraqi authorities to put an end to such "disgraceful practices" and to either quickly produce evidence to back up the allegations against the journalists or release them.
The first of the journalists to be arrested in this wave was Hussein Al Shimari, a reporter with the satellite TV station Al-Diyar, who was detained by Iraqi soldiers on 9 April in Dyala province, northeast of Baghdad, on suspicion of collaborating with the insurgents. His editor said he was tortured. He has not been allowed to contact his family, which has not received any word of him since his arrest.
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http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=13386
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