Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq

World Press Freedom Day

The annual monitoring Efforts of the Press Freedom  Advocacy Association in Iraq /PFAA indicates a similar setback to last year’s record of violations against journalists and press and media workers, through daily and immediate monitoring of all violations.

During the reporting period, PFAA monitored (280) violations involving journalists alike, including various types of violations such as attempted murder, break-ins, armed attacks, kidnapping, death threats, injuries during coverage, lawsuits in accordance with laws drafted during the dictatorship era, arrest and detention, as well as beatings, prevention and obstruction of coverage, closure of channels and dismissal of workers.

Like previous years, the Association recorded (192) case of beatings, prevention and obstruction of coverage, and this year the beating wasn’t against the men journalists, but included  women journalists as well, such as the incident that took place against Nour Tamimi, who was beaten and detained in the line of duty. (36) arrests and detentions without arrest warrants were recorded, and (10) cases of death threats and physical liquidation as well.

With regard to the distribution of violations according to the provinces, Kurdistan Region was ranked first with (83) violations, and its capital, Erbil, was the leading in the number of violations, with (56) cases, sharing its status with the federal capital Baghdad recording (56) as well. Kirkuk came in second with (37) cases of violations, followed by Mosul that is the third with (27) cases and Basra with (23) cases of violation.

It should be noted that the Iraqi journalist faces various types of violations, restrictions and mouth muzzling procedures in different provinces.

Provinces that have not recorded violations cannot be considered safe, as journalists fear reporting violations against them and also because some provinces are almost free of journalists, following the wave of assassinations and direct threats against most of them.

Below, you can see indicators of the types of violations journalists are facing in Iraq:

Also, you can see the distribution of the violations upon Iraqi Journalists based on the Iraqi provinces:

Recommendations:

After this monitory report was done, PFAA, accordingly, recommends the following:

• The HOR amends the alleged “Protection of Journalists Law” to
  provide the needed security for all journalists and to include penal
  articles against the security sides that assault the press on daily
  bases.
• The legislation of the Information Access law to enable press
  performance in the country.
• HOR should legislate the CMC law to secure its independency and
  to remote it from partisan influences.
• The Council of Ministers issues a set of regulations that stipulate
  penalty clauses against security sides and the officers who
  regularly assault journalists.
• The Council of Ministers issues a set of directives to the security
  and governmental sides obliging them to seriously undertake the
  investigating the crimes against journalists and to activate the issue
  of ending impunity.

To read the full report with specific details, Click Here