NWU Sotloff Statement

[Omaha Steve]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


NWU STATEMENT ON THE DEATH OF STEVEN J. SOTLOFF

The National Writers Union joins the rest of the world in our grief and anger over the brutal murder of Steven J. Sotloff by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). He was just 31 years old. Our sadness is compounded by the fact that his death follows so closely that of fellow freelance journalist James Foley just two weeks ago. Steven, James and many others have risked their lives to work a beat that major news sources have abandoned as too dangerous.


Steven had lived in Yemen and learned Arabic there. He covered the Arab Spring, reporting for Time, The Christian Science Monitor, The National Interest, Media Line, World Affairs, and Foreign Policy, from Egypt, Turkey, Libya, and Bahrain. He was abducted in Syria on August 4, 2013.


At least 20 journalists are still missing in Syria, where the three-year old civil war has taken the lives of more than 191,000 and created more than 3 million refugees. Thirteen Palestinian journalists were killed and more than three dozen wounded in the recent Israeli assault on Gaza. Last month, Russian journalist Andrei Stenin became the seventh journalist murdered in Ukraine, his car recently recovered on a road close to Donetsk. The vehicle was burned and riddled with bullet holes. Like Foley and Sotloff, these journalists were all targeted for execution.


The world is an ever more dangerous place. As we write this, war rages in Afghanistan, the Middle East, Ukraine and across Africa. US drone strikes occur regularly in Yemen, Pakistan, and now Somalia. And US troop levels in Iraq will soon once again top 1,100. The shocking videos of the Foley and Sotloff murders may not be what a previous administration had in mind when they launched their “Shock and Awe” invasion of Iraq. But it is what we have reaped, and there is no end in sight.


RIP Steven J. Sotloff. And to those in the field, be strong, be brave and be safe.