"Limiting the freedom of news
'just a little bit'
is in the same category with the classic example
'a little bit pregnant.'" --Robert A. Heinlen
SILENCING Journalists 2005 WorldWide
CONFIRMED KILLS: 56+ (Reporters sans Frontieres)
46+ (Committee to Protect Journalists)
STORIES to-the-cutting-room-floor
CONFIRMED KILLS: most likely 100s+++
**
CPJ- journalists killed in 2005
CPJ research indicates that the following individuals have been killed in 2004 because of their work as journalists. They either died in the line of duty or were deliberately targeted for assassination because of their reporting or their affiliation with a news organization.
See our list of pending investigations into suspicious deaths, called Killed: Motive Unconfirmed.
CONFIRMED: 46
**
recent reports on targeting the press
includes audio reports and
VIDEO 1)Palestine Hotel tank video
.....2)Kurdish convoy friendly fire, John Simpson BBC was traveling with
importance.. of the al-jazeera Memo's written ? OR...
Fact of U.S. MISSILES Fired ?!
REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS-2005
56 Journalists killed
5 Media assistants killed
115 Journalists imprisoned
3 Media assistants imprisoned
70 Cyberdissidents imprisoned and 2004 had the highest previous totals in a decade
2004 RoundUp
The deadliest year for a decade : 53 journalists killed
At least 53 journalists were killed in 2004 while doing their job or for expressing their opinions, the highest annual toll since 1995. Fifteen medias assistants (fixers, drivers, translators, technicians, security staff and others) were also killed.
In 2004 :
53 journalists and 15 media assistants were killed
at least 907 journalists were arrested
1,146 were attacked or threatened
and at least 622 media censored
http://www.rsf.org/...
**
See the list of Journalists Who Disappeared. See the list of Media Workers Killed in 2004.
http://www.cpj.org/...
**
Silencing Voices to ReWrite History
No wonder al-Jazeera was a target
EyeWitness to Al-Jazeera Baghdad office WarPlane intimidations.
Journalist Robert Fisk points out how the US government has made independent journalists and news bureaus their targets of assassination and destruction since Kosovo and Belgrade. What is appalling here is the complete lack of global outrage and uproar over the US government's assassination of Al Jazeera employees. It means, we should not be surprised at anything.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Robert Fisk - The Independent November 26, 2005
On 4 April 2003,
I was standing on the roof of al-Jazeera's office in Baghdad. The horizon was a towering epic of oil fires and burning buildings. Anti-aircraft guns in a public park close to the bureau were pumping shells into the sky and the howl of jets echoed across the city. I was about to start a two-way interview with al-Jazeera's head office in Qatar when an American rocket came racing up the Tigris river behind me. Its rail-train "swish" brought a cry from the Qatar technician who picked up the sound on his earphones.
"Was that what I think it was?" he asked. I fear so, I replied, as the white-painted cruise missile zipped beneath one of the Tigris's bridges and disappeared upstream. After finishing my "stand-upper" - television demands rooftop scenes from Baghdad even to this day, when most of the reporters are confined to their offices and hotels by teams of hired mercenaries - I descended to the al-Jazeera newsroom where the Jordanian-Palestinian bureau chief, Tareq Ayoub, was trying to put together his next report. You, I told him, have the most dangerous television office in the history of the world.
I remarked how easy a target his Baghdad office would make if the Americans wanted to destroy its coverage - seen across the Arab world - of civilian victims of the Anglo-American bombing of Iraq. "Don't worry, Robert," Tareq had replied. "We've given the Americans the exact location of our bureau so we won't get hit." Three days later, Tareq was dead.
Al-Jazeera had indeed given their office's map co-ordinates to the Pentagon. In fact, the State Department's public affairs officer in Qatar - a man of Lebanese descent called Nabil Khoury - had pointedly gone to the station's management on 6 April to assure them their bureau would be spared.
Then on 7 April, as Tareq Ayoub broadcast at 7.45am from the same spot on the roof on which I had been standing, an American jet flew across the Tigris and fired a single missile at al-Jazeera. Its explosion killed Tareq instantly. This was no errant attack. "The plane was so low, we thought it was going to land on the roof," Tareq's colleague Taiseer Alouni told me afterwards.
And Taiseer should know. He had been Kabul correspondent for al-Jazeera in 2001 when a cruise missile smashed into his (mercifully empty) bureau. Al-Jazeera had been broadcasting bin Laden's threats and sermons from Afghanistan and no one doubted at the time that the attack - which the Americans claimed was a mistake - was deliberate. After the killing of Tareq Ayoub in Baghdad in 2003, the Pentagon's soulless letter of explanation expressed its sorrow for Ayoub's death but did not even bother to offer an explanation for the attack.
Why should it? After all, on the very same day, an American Abrams M-1 A-1 tank fired a shell into the Palestine Hotel, killing three more journalists. Small arms fire, the Americans said, had been coming from the building. It was a lie.
Nor was I surprised. Back in Belgrade in 1998, I had watched the Americans bomb Serbia's television headquarters, an act which, as I wrote next morning, allowed Nato to strike at targets for the words men and women said - rather than the deeds they committed. What precedent did this set for the future? I should have guessed.
So what was so strange about George Bush's desire to bomb al-Jazeera in 2004? That Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara - the man who supposedly persuaded the American president to desist from this latest insanity - should now threaten the British press under the Official Secrets Act lest they divulge the entire can of worms is quite in keeping with the arrogance of power which we now associate with the Bush-Blair alliance. British ministers cravenly repeated America's lies when US aircraft killed the innocent in Baghdad in 2003 and they will happily cover up Bush's continued desire to bomb his supposed enemies, however innocent they may be.
http://www.worldproutassembly.org/...
*
FROM HULLABALOO- Of Course It's True
by digby
I was busy yesterday so I didn't get to comment on the amazing story that Bush wanted to bomb Al Jazeera headquarters. I think what surprised me the most is that anyone thinks that it might not true. Of course, it's true.
Having blown up two Al Jazeera offices and having his puppet shutting down remaining operations in Iraq, I have to say that I think the onus is on Bush to prove that he didn't want to blow up the Al Jazeera headquarters in Qater. Fool me once, won't get fooled again and all that.
Juan Cole leads us through the evidence, the most compelling being that he blew the shit out of two other Al Jazeera offices!:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/...
comments refer to The Control Room scene where a reporter you meet in the film is later killed by a missile attack, in footage from the film. from comments of those who have seen it, say this is most lasting, unnerving scene from the film, and that the employees placed the incident in context -as it happened just before toppling of saddam statue, that was recycled, endlessly on western propaganda portals.
(1)"In the film "Control Room" they connect the dots quite nicely about the taking out of Al Jazeera right before the toppling of the Saddam statue, so that there wouldn't be any pesky shots of empty streets and American soldiers."
(2)"You don't have to connect any dots in "Control Room." The most sickening moment in the film is the intercutting between the Al-Jazeera reporter and his cameraman on the roof as they watch (and film) as an American jet circles lazily overhead (obviously awaiting orders from Tampa) and then launches a missile at the headquarters, which is blown to bits, along with the reporter we've just met.
It was a cold-blooded murder and there's no doubt in my mind that it was ordered by the higher-ups."
JUAN COLE:Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Bush as Press Assassin?
Baathist in a Mirror
The Mirror broke the story on Tuesday that a secret British memo demonstrates that George W. Bush wanted to bomb Aljazeera's offices in Doha, Qatar, in spring of 2004. The subject came up with Prime Minister Tony Blair of the UK, and Blair is said to have argued Bush out of it.
Despite attempts of British officials to muddy the waters by suggesting that Bush was joking, another official who had seen the memo insisted, "Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much is absolutely clear from the language used by both men."
The US military bombed the Kabul offices of Aljazeera in mid-November, 2001.
The US military hit the Aljazeerah offices in Baghdad on the 9th of April, 2003, a year Bush's conversation with Blair. That attack killed journalist Tarek Ayoub, who had a 3 year old daughter. He had said earlier, "We've told the Pentagon where all our offices are in Iraq and hung giant banners outside them saying `TV.''' Given what we now know about Bush's intentions, that may have been a mistake.
Fatima Ayyoub, the 14-month-old daughter of the Al Jazeera correspondent, Tareq Ayyoub, is seen in front of a photograph of her father who died in a U.S. missile attack in Baghdad. -- Reuters
When the US and the UN shoe-horned old-time CIA asset Iyad Allawi into power as transitional prime minister, he promptly banned Aljazeera in Iraq. The channel still did fair reporting on Iraq, finding ways of buying video film and doing enlightening telephone interviews.
There have long been rumors that the Bush administration has pressured the government of Qatar to close the channel down.
One of the misdeeds attributed to Syria or pro-Syrian forces is the attempt to assassinate the Lebanese journalist and fixture on LBC, the Lebanese satellite channel, May Shidyaq (Chidiac). If the British report is true, Bush really is just a Baathist in the mirror.
Aljazeera is a widely misunderstood Arabic television channel that is mainly characterized by a quaint 1950s-style pan-Arab nationalism. It is not a fundamentalist religious channel, though it does host one old-time Muslim Brother, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Its main peculiarity in local terms is that it will air all sides of a political issue and allow frank criticism of Middle Eastern politicians as well as of Western ones. It is the only place in the Arab media where one routinely hears Israeli spokesmen (speaking very good Arabic, typically) addressing their concerns and point of view to Arab audiences.
Most of Aljazeera's programming is presented by natty men in business suits or good-looking, chic Arab women in fashionable Western clothes. (I see the anchors every day and am stricken at the idea of them being blown to smithereens by an American "accidental" bombing!) A lot of the programming is Discovery Channel-style documentaries.
The news is often criticial of the United States, though the journalists like controversy and are perfectly capable of asking fundamentalists and nationalists from the region very hard questions. The channel is one of the few places where you can sometimes see frank debate among Sunni Arab, Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis -the Lord knows we don't see it on US news-! Some Aljazeera journalists may have been sympathetic to radical Muslim groups, but mainly on nationalist and anti-imperialist grounds. These people don't look like adherents of political Islam for the most part.
Ironically, after one of the early-morning Aljazeera news broadcasts EST on Wednesday that discussed the Bush plot against the channel, the next show was about recently released American movies, including "Jarhead" (about a Marine during the Gulf War), which showcased the films enthusiastically and may as well have been an infomercial.
It was jarring, the effusiveness about American soft power after the admission of the dark side of US military power.
Plotting to assassinate civilian journalists in a friendly country is certainly against the law, and if Bush is ever impeached, this charge will certainly figure in the trial. Who knows, maybe the murder of Tarek Ayoub will be added to the charges. His daughter must be 5, now.
There is a detailed and very valuable timeline of Bush administration- Aljazeera relations at Booman Tribune.
---
posted by Juan @ 11/23/2005 06:35:00 AM 37 comments
ALERT! comment...slueths?
Let's also not forget this incident:
Al-Jazeera's Basra hotel bombed
-posted comment-
Wednesday April 2, 2003
A hotel in Basra being used as a base by al-Jazeera's team of correspondents in the city was shelled this morning, the Arabic TV news channel has claimed.
The Basra Sheraton, whose only guests are al-Jazeera journalists, received four direct hits this morning during a heavy artillery bombardment, according to the Qatar-based broadcaster...
Another accident, I'm sure.
**
quote from the movie:Journalist: Who can defeat the Americans? They are so strong.
Hassan Ibrahim: "The Americans will defeat the Americans. I have ultimate faith in the American Constitution."
July 27, 2004
Control Room
Inside Al Jazeera
By MIKE WHITNEY
There's a chilling scene in Jahane Noujaim's new documentary Control Room where an American F-16 is seen slowly turning in the sky over Baghdad. The plane arcs lazily in the blue sky and then quickly noses downward, following a straight line towards the building that houses the Al Jazeera news facility.
In a flash, two laser guided missiles are fired at the building and their impact knocks out the visual.
It all happens in a matter of seconds.
Veteran journalist, Tarik Ayoub was killed instantly in the attack.
Later that same day, fighter pilots would bomb the Abu Dhabi media facility in similar fashion.
The day's events would end on the streets of Baghdad where an Abrams Tank slowly turned its turret towards the Palestine Hotel; the accommodation for all the visiting media in Iraq.
The tank lifted its muzzle towards the 13th floor, and moments later fired...killing a Spanish journalist and wounding three others.
No one who sees this shocking segment will confuse it for anything other than what it was....cold blooded murder.
(.....)
The footage of Ayoub's colleagues back in Doha is devastating.
They all know what they've just witnessed, and the control room is silenced with a palpable sense of horror.
No one has any misgivings about the message being conveyed.
As Al Jazeera's chain smoking manager avers, "We were told that 'you are either with us or against us'....we have received receipt of that message."
It's gut wrenching.
http://counterpunch.org/...
**
Thursday, December 01, 2005
SURPRISE!
Here's a great quote:
"They've got a pattern of playing propaganda over and over and over again. It's up to all of us to try to tell the truth, to say what we know, to say what we don't know, and recognize that we're dealing with people who are perfectly willing to lie to the world to attempt to further their case, and to the extent people lie, ultimately they are caught lying and they lose their credibility and you'd think it wouldn't take very long for that to happen dealing with people like this."
Who said it?
Donald Rumsfeld, about Al Jazeera, in a clip used in the movie "Control Room."
But, Don, ummm .... it did take very long, in your case, didn't it?
Here's another one:
"Once you start down that defamation lane, then you have to be held accountable for what you say. That's what I'm talking about. Not honest dissent. I'm talking about blatant propaganda spit out there on a daily basis by hateful liars, picked up by the mainstream media and rammed down the public's throat. That's what I'm talking about."
Who said that?
Bill O'Reilly.
But, Bill, ummm - the war? The Clinton impeachment?
Do you think these guys know that they're talking about themselves? Is there a keen sense of irony here? Are they knowingly accusing their opposition of their own propaganda tactics? Or are they completely unable to see themselves at all?
http://tweetpetite.blogspot.com/...
**
November 23, 2005
Frank Gaffney: Bomb the Bad Media. . .If the Shoe Fits, Bomb Al-Jazeera
(...)
But Frank Gaffney, presently one of the most media-visible neoconservative spear-carriers, has said on BBC that the controversy about President Bush possibly saying to Tony Blair that we should bomb Al-Jazeera headquarters may not have been so inappropriate.
First of all, TWN takes no position at all on whether Bush said this outrageous statement. It could be a fabrication, and it is tough at this point to validate or confirm -- but because Gaffney has speculated about it and given his blessing to the bombing of Arab media, under certain circumstances, TWN feels comfortable reporting on this.
In this news clip, Gaffney is asked whether, if true, isn't it outrageous that President Bush would suggest bombing a civilian news agency?
Gaffney: If it has some truth to it, I'm not sure it is outrageous.
Reporter: Seriously?
Gaffney: I believe that Al-Jazeera is an instrument of enemy propaganda in a war we are obliged to fight and win, not just for Americans and not just for Iraqis but for freedom-loving people everywhere, and I think that, to the extent that Al-Jazeera is actively aiding our foes, it is certainly appropriate to talk about what you do to neutralize it to prevent it from doing that sort of harm to the cause and even to the lives of servicemen fighting this war.
Gaffney continues in the interview:
Gaffney: We're talking about a news organization, so called, that is promoting bin Laden, that is promoting Zawahiri, that is promoting Zarqawi, that is promoting beheadings, that is promoting suicide bombers, that is other ways enabling the propaganda aspects of this war to be fought by our enemies, and I think that puts it squarely in the target category.
Whether the best way to do it is with bombs or through other means is something we could discuss, but I think it's fair game, under these circumstances, given the way it conducts itself.
So, an alert to ALL who attend the next public session with Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes. Please ask her whether she agrees -- at any level -- with Frank Gaffney.
Does Stephen Hadley agree with Frank Gaffney? How about Karl Rove? And of course, make sure that we ask Condoleeza Rice, Deputy Secretary of State Bob Zoellick, and Scott McClellan in the next press gaggle. . .
When neoconservative zealots like Frank Gaffney even implicitly (and under certain conditions) advocate the bombing of the Arab world's most significant news organization, then the administration should be forced to choose between the Gaffneys of this world on one hand, and a sensible, reasoned foreign policy that must rid itself of this kind of pugnaciousness on the other.
NEWS CLIP + links @ http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/...
**
INNOCENTLY 'FLOATING' IDEAS..OUT THERE
limbaugh, coulter, savage and O'Really? are masters at pushing 'buttons'
and propagating 'suggestive triggers'
Take Out Al Jazeera
Monday, September 29, 2003
By Frank Gaffney, Jr.
FOX NEWS
(...)
Unfortunately, these episodic, and usually fleeting, appearances do not begin to match -- let alone to counteract -- the incessant drumbeat of Muslim victimization, anti-Western vituperation and approval for acts of violence thus justified when perpetrated by terrorists. The Iraqi Governing Council is confronting the reality of this danger every day and has responded appropriately, within its limited means.
Under present wartime circumstances, though, the United States has the ability -- and, indeed, an urgent responsibility -- to take more comprehensive action against Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. Unless the two networks adjust their behavior so as no longer to act as the propaganda arm of our enemies, they should be taken off the air, one way or another.
In the meantime, it is imperative that enemy media be taken down if they insist on using their access to the airwaves as instruments of the war against us and our allies.
Frank J. Gaffney Jr. held senior positions in the Reagan Defense Department. He is currently president of the Center for Security Policy.
http://www.foxnews.com/...
**
JUSTICE FOR JOURNALISTS KILLED IN IRAQ - APRIL 8TH PROTEST
April 8th 2003 is a date that haunts the world of journalism. It was a year ago that more than 150 journalists at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad came under fire from US forces. Two journalists were killed and three others wounded. To this day there has been no satisfactory explanation about why that attack took place. The US authorities have issued a whitewash report clearing their military of any responsibility - but they steadfastly refuse to make the report public.
In all, seven journalists perished in four separate incidents of so-called "friendly fire" by US troops in Iraq since hostilities began in March 2003. Two journalists, Taras Protsiuk working for Reuters and José Couso, a cameraman for the Spanish network Telecinco, were killed in the Palestine Hotel, which was hit the day before Baghdad fell.
The attack provoked outrage among journalists and media groups when the US falsely claimed that troops had been fired on from the hotel. Besides the Palestine Hotel deaths, journalists are raising questions about the deaths of Tareq Ayyoub, a journalist killed during a US air-strike on the offices of Al-Jazeera in Baghdad; the deaths of British ITN reporter Terry Lloyd and his colleagues Fred Nérac and Hussein Osman, whose bodies are still missing, in a fire fight between US and Iraqi troops near Basra, and the shooting by US soldiers of Reuters cameramen Mazen Dana in August.
But it is the attack on the Palestine Hotel, a shameful incident made worse by US misinformation circulated after the event, that has caused widespread anger and come to symbolise the notion of impunity that characterize official treatment of journalists in Iraq.
Earlier this year Reuters news agency criticised the US military's investigation into the detention and treatment of its staff in Iraq in January this year, and the journalists are strongly backing the agency call for the US to withdraw statements suggesting, without evidence, that combatants posing as journalists had fired on US forces.
In addition the television news station Al-Jazeera presented an IFJ-FAJ mission to Baghdad in January (IFJ-FAJ Iraq Mission Report Jan 2004) with a list of a dozen instances of harassment of its staff by the military.
The IFJ has published a detailed report - Justice Denied on the Road to Baghdad - outlining dissatisfaction within journalism about the failure of the US to properly investigate incidents in which seven journalists died during the war.
We are asking all member unions on April 8th to send letters of protest to the US embassy and to support the enclosed petition at national level. We ask you also to send copies of this protest to your national government and to seek national support for the IFJ's call for stronger action to enhance the safety of journalists with the United Nations and to seek for changes in international law to strengthen the rights of journalists in times of conflict.
CLICK HERE TO READ AND SIGN THE IFJ INTERNATIONAL PETITION
& see photos of the deceased.
cuz of CEASE and DESIST...top-down RealityControl
http://www.ifj.org/...
**
Steve Clemons site http://www.thewashingtonnote.com
IS providing good details about the al-jazeera bombing report
HE REFERENCES A TIMELINE FROM http://WWW.BOOMANTRIBUNE.com
Let's examine the specific record as it pertains to Al-Jazeera:
THE ADMINISTRATION IN ITS OWN WORDS:
TIMELINE OF INFALAMMATORY, HOSTILE, 'SETTING THE STAGE', CONDITIONING THE CLIMATE RHETORIC TO PAVE THE WAY FOR TARGETTING
@ http://www.boomantribune.com/...
Bush V Al-Jazeera: Fact or Fancy?
http://www.boomantribune.com/...
by jpol
Sat Nov 26th, 2005 at 07:58:11 PM EST
***********
FOUND ! in YahOO 'image search' for PALESTINE HOTEL TANK it gave me the image plus this rePort which is a clearinghouse for links to journalist dispatches, reports of incidences, injuries, detentions from 2003 & 2004 from The Guardian concerning the war on the press, a war on truth.
PALESTINE HOTEL TANK Video clip @ http://www.abc.net.au/...
VIDEO OF DOD PRESS BRIEFING
Geoff Mead, Sky News: If I can continue on the point you made there. If you're claiming the fire was coming from the lobby of the Palestine Hotel, why was the tank round directed at an upper floor? And what does that kind of marksmanship - or lack of it - suggest about the risks to civilians as your forces penetrate further into Baghdad?
General Vincent Brooks: The response of fire is something that we always have to get more details as time goes on- first, specifically, where the fire was returned and what was hit and where the fire came from. So I may have misspoken on exactly where the fire came from.
CNN, 9 April 2003
Watch video » http://www.abc.net.au/...
An injured Reuters journalist receives attention after blast shakes Palestine Hotel
report + more videos here http://www.sabcnews.com/...
Iraq: two journalists were killed when a US tank shelled Baghdad's Palestine Hotel on April 8 2003
US swells Iraq media death toll
Patrick Barrett
Friday April 23, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
Iraq: two journalists were killed when a US tank shelled Baghdad's Palestine Hotel on April 8 2003
The US military has been blamed for the deaths of almost a third of all the journalists and media employees killed in Iraq since the start of the war last year.
The total number of media workers killed in Iraq this week rose to 28 including 24 journalists, with the shooting by American soldiers of two employees of US-funded TV station al-Iraqiya.
US forces have been confirmed as responsible for seven deaths, including employees from the BBC, Reuters, Arab TV stations al-Arabiya and al-Jazeera and Spanish station Telecinco. In addition, the US military has been implicated in the shooting of two further media employees, the ITN correspondent Terry Lloyd and an Iraqi cameraman employed by the US ABC network, who was shot in Falluja last month.
According to figures compiled by Associated Press and press watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists, half of all the journalists and media workers killed during the hostilities in Iraq have died since the beginning of this year.
A total of 19 media employees have been killed since George Bush formally declared the end of the war against Saddam Hussein's regime at the beginning of May last year.
Controversy over the extent to which the US military has been responsible for the deaths of media employees operating in Iraq comes as reports surface of mistreatment meted out to employees of al-Jazeera by the US military.
In one case, al-Jazeera cameraman Salah Hassan has accused the US of detaining him for a month, during which he claims he was beaten, verbally abused and kept in solitary confinement.
Hassan, who was arrested in November last year following an attack on an American convoy, claims he was addressed only as "al-Jazeera" or "bitch" by US soldiers and at one stage was forced to stand hooded, bound and naked for 11 hours and repeatedly kicked when he collapsed.
He was eventually released on a street outside Baghdad still dressed in the vomit-stained jump suit US guards had forced him to wear during his incarceration.
Hassan's case and the arrest of 20 other al-Jazeera journalists has served to aggravate the already strained relations between the US military and the Arab news channel.
Last week the Doha-based station accused the US military of "threatening" the media in Iraq and pressuring journalists into presenting a US-biased view of events in the country, after a spokesman for the US military accused the station of being "anti-coalition".
US commanders have been furious with al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya for repeatedly broadcasting footage of civilian victims of the violence in Falluja, where Iraqi rebels are fighting US Marines. The US had claimed that the majority of those killed and wounded had been armed insurgents, but al-Jazeera ran reports that US snipers had fired deliberately on women and children in the town.
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said viewers should switch off al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya and watch a "legitimate, authoritative, honest news station".
"The stations that are showing Americans intentionally killing women and children are not legitimate news sources," he said.
Other allegations circulating in Iraq suggest that US soldiers have deliberately shot at Arab journalists and demanded the removal of an al-Jazeera reporting team from Falluja as a condition for a recent cease-fire in the town.
A spokesman for the coalition said he was unaware of Hassan's case but that the coalition and the US military's relationship with al-Jazeera was the same as with any other media organisation.
"It's entirely open. There is no question that they go and target journalists or cameramen or whatever," he said.
All of the 14 journalists and media employees to die in Iraq this year have been Iraqi or Arabs working for Middle Eastern or western media companies.
The latest journalist to die, Asaad Kadhim, and his driver Hussein Saleh worked for al-Iraqiya, the TV station set up by the coalition to help promote press freedom in the country.
Mr Kadhim and Mr Saleh were shot on Monday by American soldiers as they drove away from an interview with Iraqi police. Jassem Kamel, an al-Iraqiya cameraman who was wounded in the shooting, claimed a US soldier punched him in the face before he was given first aid.
The incident follows the shooting of two journalists from al-Arabiya by US soldiers at a checkpoint in Baghdad on March 18.
A Ukrainian cameraman working for Reuters and a cameraman for the Telecinco TV station, Spaniard Jose Couso, were killed in April last year when a US tank fired on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad.
A Kurdish translator working for the BBC was also killed in April last year when a US aircraft bombed a convoy of US special forces and Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
Journalists in danger- a plethora of documentation 2003/2004 from reports just filed at The Guardian !
22.04.2004: ITN shuns Iraq medal
15.04.2004: Japanese journalists captured in Iraq
14.04.2004: Iraqi kidnappers release French journalist
14.04.2004: US military 'pressuring' journalists
14.04.2004: French demand release of missing journalist
14.04.2004: Kidnaps blow to rebuilding efforts
08.04.2004: Reuters issues Iraq safety plea
23.03.2004: Stop 'needless' Iraq deaths, says Reuters boss
13.01.2004: US military 'brutalised' journalists
07.01.2004: 42 journalists killed in 2003
ITN's Terry Lloyd and crew
22.03.2004: ITV journalists 'killed by US troops'
22.03.2004: Wife of missing cameraman fights on
10.09.2003: Mirror defends Lloyd story
10.09.2003: ITN rejects new Lloyd claims
10.09.2003: Lloyd killed by US helicopter fire, claims Iraqi
27.05.2003: MoD opens ITN Iraq inquiry
16.04.2003: Wife of missing ITN man in fresh appeal
15.04.2003: Lloyd 'caught between crossfire'
03.04.2003: Powell responds to wife of missing cameraman
03.04.2003: US and UK 'know what happened' to Lloyd and his crew
25.03.2003: Wife in plea for missing ITN cameraman
24.03.2003: BBC takes care after journalist's death
24.03.2003: Colleagues mourn ITN reporter's death
24.03.2003: ITV stands down crews after Terry Lloyd is killed
24.03.2003: Terry Lloyd obituary by David Mannion
24.03.2003: Terry Lloyd obituary by David Nicholson
BBC's John Simpson survives attack
11.11.2003: Libby Brooks talks to John Simpson
09.04.2003: Simpson: journalists 'taking a hammering'
07.04.2003: Simpson recovering from 'friendly fire' attack
07.04.2003: Simpson: 'I saw the bomb come down'
Sunday :: April 06, 2003
Live Report of U.S.-Kurdish Convoy Hit By Friendly Fire
The BBC's world affairs editor John Simpson was accompanying a convoy of US special forces and Kurdish fighters when it came under attack from an American warplane, killing at least ten, including some American soldiers. Simpson was wounded by shrapnal, but kept reporting live by satellite phone. You can view the video/audio of his report here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
John Simpson BBC video moments after attack
blood is seen on the camera lense
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
FULL REPORT http://talkleft.com/...
Journalists under attack
12.12.2003: Iraq strike injures two journalists
13.06.2003: Thompson was 'thorn in MoD's side'
30.05.2003: BBC brings in 'safety tsar'
02.05.2003: Watchdog condemns Iraq deaths
25.04.2003: Powell defends attack on Baghdad hotel
16.04.2003: First female journalist dies in Iraq
15.04.2003: Toll rises as Argentine reporter dies
14.04.2003: CNN defiant after Tikrit firefight
11.04.2003: 'I didn't want to die,' says Times man
10.04.2003: Editors blast Rumsfeld over 'reckless' US strike
10.04.2003: Al-Jazeera crew attacked in Detroit
09.04.2003: Straw to seek explanation for journalist deaths
09.04.2003: 'We were almost lynched', say journalists
09.04.2003: Fury at US as attacks kill three journalists
09.04.2003: Ukraine mourns dead journalist
08.04.2003: US claims killings were 'self defence'
08.04.2003: Military accused of targeting non-embedded journalists
08.04.2003: Army admits firing on hotel
08.04.2003: US: press deaths 'unfortunate'
08.04.2003: Second journalist dies after hotel strike
08.04.2003: Reuters man killed in US attack
08.04.2003: Journalists injured as Baghdad hotel attacked
08.04.2003: Al-Jazeera claims military 'cover up'
08.04.2003: Al-Jazeera cameraman killed in US raid
07.04.2003: Spanish and German reporters killed
04.04.2003: US journalist killed in Iraq
Kaveh Ibrahim Golestan and Stuart Hughes
20.05.2003: Do not rely on embedded journalists, urges BBC man
08.04.2003: BBC producer has foot amputated
03.04.2003: BBC film maker killed by landmine
04.04.2003: Obituary: Kaveh Golestan
War toll
13.09.2004: Journalists killed, missing and held in Iraq
09.04.2003: Media casualties of other conflicts
09.04.2003: Iraq - the most dangerous war for journalists
Farzad Bazoft
18.05.2003: Writer hanged by Iraq 'no spy'
18.05.2003: Donald Trelford: Simply a journalist after a scoop
Interview with wife of missing cameraman
01.05.2003: 'Whenever I dream about him, he is still alive'
NBC's David Bloom
07.04.2003: Blood clot kills NBC's star correspondent
08.04.2003: Obituary: David Bloom
Channel 4 News' Gaby Rado
13.06.2003: Rado among winners at media awards
27.05.2003: Amnesty creates award in honour of Rado
31.03.2003: Viewers and colleagues pay tribute to Rado
31.03.2003: Gaby Rado obituary by Jon Snow
Comment and analysis
15.06.2003: Philip Knightley: Turning the tanks on the reporters
13.04.2003: Stuart Purvis: Showing courage in line of fire
10.04.2003: Steve Bell: Drawing fire
24.03.2003: Matt Wells: Journalists in the line of fire
08.04.2002: Nik Gowing: 'Don't get in our way'
MediaGuardian.co.uk special report
Iraq - the media war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
anyone of these headlines can be googled for in depth info and
YAHoo-provides a better search for video than Google.
PARDON ALL THE BOLDING? CHECKED IT 3 TIMES HTML OK !
BUG IN THIS SITE, i guess