From The Independent

Iraq: the most dangerous place on earth for journalists

The Independent reports (June 14^th): Ever since the US-led invasion of 2003, Iraq has been the most dangerous country in the world to be a journalist. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says that 89 have been murdered and a further 50 have died in crossfire or other acts of war. Some 117 of the dead journalists, were Iraqi. The CPJ says that Iraq holds the world record for journalists murdered with impunity; nobody has ever been prosecuted for any of the killings.

But, some argue, the threat to freedom of expression in Iraq is changing. Fewer journalists are dying today than a few years ago but journalism itself is beginning to expire under relentless official pressure.

"The real danger to journalism is not killings and kidnappings but the clampdown by the authorities," says Ziad al-Ajili, the head of Journalistic Freedom Observatory, a Baghdad-based media rights organisation.

The JFO, whose office is protected by heavy metal doors, methodically records and protests against the assaults, harassment and detention of reporters by the security forces as well as raids on media outlets and their closure. Its last annual report lists 262 different types of attacks, almost all of them by the state security forces.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-the-most-dangerous-place-on-earth-for-journalists-1999729.html