Monday, August 29, 2005

Reuters Demands Wounded Cameraman's Release

Reuters Demand U.S. Military Release Wounded Cameraman

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - The surviving member of a news gathering team gunned down yesterday by U.S. snipers in Baghdad is being held incommunicado by the military. Reuters, the international news agency today demanded the immediate release of the wounded cameraman, and an investigation of the incident.

www.pej.org


Reuters Demand U.S. Military
Release Wounded Cameraman
C. L. Cook

PEJ News
August 29th, 2005

Waleed Khaled became one of a lengthening list of killed journalists in Iraq yesterday when a single shot from a sniper's rifle struck him mortally in the head. His colleague, Haider Kadhem was wounded and taken into U.S. custody. His current whereabouts have not been revealed.

Already, journalist fatalities in the three and half years of the invasion and occupation of Iraq has eclipsed that of the more than twenty years of conflict in Vietnam.

More than forty journos have been killed and many more wounded in Iraq since March 2003, prompting many to question whether they are being deliberately targeted. Certainly, the family of Spanish journalist Jose Couso do, leading demonstrations in Spain every April 8th, the anniversary of his death in the infamous tank attack against Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, and demanding a full investigation into his killing be held. Former CNN executive, Eason Jordon paid with his job for his "off-the-record" remarks earlier this year at the World Economic Forum some interpreted as suggesting just that.

The U.S. military says they're investigating yesterday fatal shooting, but suggested in was just another "regrettable accident." Similarly, the shooting of freed Italian kidnapping victim, reporter Giuliana Sgrena and killing of her rescuer, Italian intelligence agent, Nicola Calipari in March, were brushed aside as an unfortunate accident.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. He also serves as a contributing editor at PEJ News. You can check out the GR Blog here.

Journalists Known Killed in Iraq in 2005

- Feb 9, 2005 - Abdul-Hussein Khazal, Basra correspondent of the U.S.-funded television station Alhurra, is shot dead.

- March 14 - In Mosul, gunmen kill Hussam Habib, an Iraqi cameraman working for Kurdistan Satellite TV. He had been kidnapped 12 hours before he was killed.

- April 23 - In Mosul, AP Television News cameraman Saleh Ibrahim dies after being shot three times in the chest when gunfire breaks out while he is reporting on an explosion.

- May 15 - Ahmed Adam and Najem Abd Khudair, reporters with the private Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada, are killed in Latifiya, south of Baghdad.

- May 31 - Jerges Mahmood Mohamad Suleiman, news anchor at Nineveh TV, is shot in Mosul. Nineveh TV is a local affiliate of Al-Iraqiya TV.

- June 24 - Knight Ridder reporter Yasser Shalihee is shot and killed while driving near a roadblock manned by U.S. and Iraqi troops.

- Jul 1 - Khalid al-Attar, an Al-Iraqiya television journalist, is abducted in Mosul by unidentified gunmen and found shot to death.

- Aug 2 - Steven Vincent, a freelance investigative journalist and art critic from New York


Annotations


Guiliana Sgrena Hit?
http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=
modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2034


Reuters Demands Answers
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=
worldNews&storyID=2005-08-29T175500Z_01_MCC862498
_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ-REUTERS.xml


Reuters Journalist Killed
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/769


Two Reuters Reporters Hit
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=
05/08/29/145203


Eason Jordon Resigns over Remarks
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/
02/11/easonjordan.cnn/

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