Danger for Iraqi Journalists
Page 2 of 2
|
|
Fadhil was hooded (a practice US military spokesmen once said had been discontinued) and taken for a few hours' interrogation. He believes the arrest was a case of mistaken identity, but says that videotapes for a documentary that he has been working on about the reconstruction were taken by troops and have still not been returned.
Fadhil is now studying at New York University on a Fulbright scholarship, but he said he lived, the two weeks before he left Iraq, in a Baghdad hotel, afraid for his safety because his neighbors, as a result of the raid, had discovered he worked for a foreign news outlet. (Ghazalia is a Sunni neighborhood that has been the site of much violence.)
Fadhil, who won the Foreign Press Associationyoung journalist of the year award in November, said he has also been threatened by Col. Adnan Al-Jabouri, a spokesman and press liaison for Iraq's Ministry of Interior, while working on a short film about "Terrorists in the Hands of Justice", a program on the government-owned Al-Iraqia station for which the Ministry of Interior provides videotaped confessions from alleged criminals and insurgents. Fadhil's film offers a unique look at the way in which video is being used by all sides to intimidate and terrorize.
"It's very difficult to work with the Iraqi government. If you're not from the channel that is with their party, it means you are against them. They never want to talk to you or let you go into a place that they think is sensitive to them. Even filming in the street is hard."
In some places, filming is simply impossible, for instance in western Iraq, where some cities are under control of extremist insurgents. Fahdil's colleague Omer Mahdi managed to spend three days in the city of Haditha last year but was unable to film.
"As soon as he got there, the fixer he was with changed his mind. He was very frightened. The insurgents in these places are very well-organized," Fadhil said. "He could have been killed at any moment. In this places it is not being a journalist working for the western media, it is just being a journalist. These people are extreme Islamists, and in their religion, journalism is haram [forbidden]."
>"There were many things I couldn't film in Falluja. Some of it was because of the Americans. At the checkpoint they gave me several rules," Fadhil said. "They knew that I worked for [British TV's] Channel Four, so they gave me some respect. They told me the snipers would shoot at me if I stopped my car on the main street."
But Fadhil remains more concerned about the actions of the Iraqi government. He recently spent time in southern Iraq while working on a documentary about reconstruction that he hopes will be released in March, and found people there extremely frightened.
"People are afraid to talk," Fadhil said. "Najaf is under the strict control of [The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq] militia."
SCIRI is in control of the Ministry of Interior. Hamdani, still in Baghdad, echoed Fadhil's concern and related the recent case of a colleague.
"The most recent incident was for Anwar Al-Hamdani, the host of a show on Al Nahreen TV. His show is popular in Iraq, and he allowed some criticism of the new government on his show and the Iraqi military detained him inside the TV station. That is a danger to the freedom of the press."
David Enders is a frequent contributor to MotherJones.com and author of Baghdad Bulletin: Dispatches on the American Occupation. He has survived a kidnapping attempt and nearly been shot by US troops.
Additional reporting for this article by Salam Talib, who once made Enders verbally record a last will and testament before doing interviews with members of an angry funeral party in Sadr City. Talib has also been threatened in Baghdad for working with foreigners.
