@@ Americans are terrorizing journalists and reporters - There's FREEDOM for you! @@

Guardian UK
September 28, 2005


U.S. forces 'out of control', says Reuters chief


By Julia Day


Reuters has told the U.S. government that American forces' conduct towards
journalists in Iraq is "spiraling out of control" and preventing full coverage of the
war reaching the public.

The detention and accidental shootings of journalists is limiting how journalists can
operate, wrote David Schlesinger, the Reuters global managing editor
(http://www.opcofamerica.org/opc_board/opc_board/board_member.php?id=schlesinger), in
a letter to Senator John Warner, head of the armed services committee
(http://armed-services.senate.gov).

The Reuters news service chief referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents
whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or
illegally abused by U.S. forces in Iraq".

David Schlesinger urged the senator to raise the concerns with Defence Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, who is due to testify to the committee this Thursday.

He asked Senator Warner to demand that Rumsfeld resolve these issues "in a way that
best balances the legitimate security interests of the U.S. forces in Iraq and the
equally legitimate rights of journalists in conflict zones under international law".

At least 66 journalists and media workers, most of them Iraqis, have been killed in
the country since March 2003.

U.S. forces admitted killing three Reuters journalists, most recently soundman Waleed
Khaled, who was shot by American soldiers on August 28 while on assignment in
Baghdad. But the military said the soldiers were justified in opening fire. Reuters
believes a fourth journalist working for the agency, who died in Ramadi last year,
was killed by a U.S. sniper.

'A serious chilling effect on the media'

"The worsening situation for professional journalists in Iraq directly limits
journalists' abilities to do their jobs and, more importantly, creates a serious
chilling effect on the media overall," Schlesinger wrote.

"By limiting the ability of the media to fully and independently cover the events in
Iraq, the U.S. forces are unduly preventing U.S. citizens from receiving information
.... and undermining the very freedoms the U.S. says it is seeking to foster every day
that it commits U.S. lives and U.S. dollars."

David Schlesinger said the U.S. military had refused to conduct independent and
transparent investigations into the deaths of the Reuters journalists, relying
instead on inquiries by officers from the units responsible, who had exonerated their
soldiers.

He noted that the U.S. military had failed to implement recommendations by its own
inquiry into the death of award-winning Palestinian cameraman Mazen Dana, who was
shot dead while filming outside Abu Ghraib prison in August 2003.

He said that Reuters and other reputable international news organizations were
concerned by the "sizeable and rapidly increasing number of journalists detained by
U.S. forces".

He said detentions were prompted by legitimate journalistic activity such as
possessing photographs and video of insurgents, which U.S. soldiers assumed showed
sympathy with the insurgency.

Earlier this week Reuters demanded the release of a freelance Iraqi cameraman after a
secret tribunal ordered that he be detained indefinitely.

Samir Mohammed Noor, a freelance cameraman working for Reuters, was arrested by Iraqi
troops at his home in the northern town of Tal Afar four months ago.

A U.S. military spokesman has told the agency that a secret hearing held last week
had found him to be "an imperative threat to the coalition forces and the security of
Iraq".

The news agency has demanded that he be released or given a chance to defend himself
in open court.

The U.S. network CBS has raised concerns over the arrest of its cameraman, Abdul Amir
Younes, who was arrested in hospital in April after he was shot by US troops.

CBS said it is concerned that he had no legal representation at the hearing and has
had no chance to see the evidence against him.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0%2C2763%2C1580244%2C00.html


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