These figures have shocked the international media fraternity, which believes that most of the media practitioners are being targeted for baseless political or religious reasons. And it is not over yet…
“Four years after the US-led forces invasion of Iraq, the toll of media deaths continues to mount,” RSF said in a statement published in its website. “Iraq has become the world’s most dangerous country for the press, and 83% percent of the 153 journalists and media assistants killed there so far have been Iraqi nationals.
“No journalist is safe anywhere, whether in Baghdad [capital city], or Kurdistan [northern Iraq]. They are most often murdered as they leave their home or office,” RSF added.
Like any other professional ‘dreaming big’ and seeking greener pastures, working in Iraq has proved very tempting as the pay is huge, many observers said.
“I would not hesitate if I were given the chance to work in Iraq even for two days,” two local journalists simultaneously told Bizcommunity.com on condition of anonymity.
An RSF correspondent based in Iraq was quoted as saying that when a journalist fails to show up for work, his friends and colleagues immediately check the morgue.
Kidnappings of journalists in Iraq are also on the increase, RSF said, adding that at least 64 media workers have been kidnapped since March 2003.
“Seventeen of them have been executed by their captors. There is no word on the fate of 11 others. In the 11 and half months since Iraqi reporter Reem Zeid and her colleague Marwan Khazaal of Sumariya TV, a local station, were kidnapped on February 2006, her abductors have never contacted her family or employer,” RSF concluded.
