Iraqi officers threaten reporters ('kill every journalist' in Najaf)

[Barrett808]

Iraqi officers threaten reporters
By Stephen Farrell
August 18, 2004

IRAQI police have threatened to kill every journalist working in the holy city of Najaf, where US forces are locked in a tense stand-off with Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army.

After a series of veiled warnings to leave on Sunday, two marked police cars pulled up at dusk outside the Sea of Najaf hotel on the outskirts of town, where Arab and Western journalists are staying.

Ten uniformed policemen walked into the hotel and demanded that the al-Arabiya, Reuters and AP correspondents go with them.

Journalists told them they were not there, but the policemen found and arrested Ahmed al-Salahih, the al-Arabiya correspondent, who the day before had been given a special exemption from the earlier eviction orders.

A uniformed lieutenant then told the assembled journalists and hotel staff: "We are going to open fire on this hotel. I'm going to smash it all, kill you all, and I'm going to put four snipers to target anybody who goes out of the hotel. You have brought it upon yourselves."

(more)

http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10478772%5E401,00.html

[soothsayer]

1. Don't you just love the spread of freedom and democracy? It's fantastic

What a great job we've done with good ol' Iraq.

[rocktivity]

2. Why?

:headbang:
rocknation

[leftchick]

3. The Stench of bush* style freedom....

in Iraq is overpowering. Stay safe you brave Journalists...
:(

[Joanne98]

4. They should have said.........

"If you don't leave, we will kill you all, or torture and rape you at the least". "We have imbedded FAUX news reporters to tell the world the truth because they're fair and balanced." :)

[quaoar]

5. Sounds like a Negroponte operation

This sounds like what the Bush Administration fantasizes about doing in the United States -- so they are living vicariously through their puppet regime in Iraq.

[Union Thug]

6. This is just Bush's proxy army doing his bidding....

...Little Georgie's got some killin' and a-torturin' to do thar in Najaf and we can'ts be havin' any reporterating journalists broadcasting the bloodshed to the rest of the world.

[BeHereNow]

15. ROLF!

"Reporterating..."
Classic.
BHN

[Avalux]

7. A uniformed lietenant

representing the new iraqi "government". The line between the new regime and the former regime is mighty thin. Things are so much better now, aren't they?

[Viking12]

14. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss....

[truthisfreedom]

8. just exactly how did they bring it upon themselves?

and what did we do to bring bush upon ourselves?

[lottie244]

9. So this is what 1,000 American soldiers will have died for?

What a mess.

[psychopomp]

10. eggshells

We should be walking on them. Look at this from the article:

Any military operation will be hampered by the fact that Sadr's hundreds of fighters inside the old city and cemetery have grown by about 2000, swelled by volunteers who marched through US lines at the weekend to act as human shields. Yesterday they paraded around the marble white-tiled courtyard inside the golden-domed mosque, effectively turning it into a giant stadium for rallies to the renegade Shia cleric.

All were unarmed but insisted they would pick up the guns of any Mehdi fighters killed in renewed clashes.

Love this snippit (journalists who go to war zones are tough):

After pushing and shoving in the foyer, another policeman pointed his gun towards a member of the staff, but was disarmed by an Arab television journalist.

[saigon68]

11. We Created A Nation Ruled By A THUG DICTATOR AND HOODLUMS

I'm sure the execs at HALLIBURTON are pleased.

The Gold Star mothers whose children were killed can't be too Happy.

[daleo]

12. Let freedom reign

More evidence of the BFEE and their puppet regime's disdain for democracy. But the world is watching, even if CNN is more interested in Laci and sharks.

[Barrett808]

13. KC Star photographer threatened in Iraq; She took photos of police beating

Star photographer threatened in Iraq
She took photos of police beating
By Hannah Allam Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq — An Iraqi police officer physically assaulted and threatened to kill a Kansas City Star photojournalist Monday after she took photos of officers beating a suspected pickpocket.

Allison Long, 31, on rotation in Iraq for Knight Ridder newspapers, was walking inside a police cordon near the Baghdad Convention Center, where more than 1,000 Iraqi delegates met to pick a national assembly this week. Long and two Iraqi colleagues saw Iraqi policemen, guns drawn, running after a man just before 9 a.m.

“It just looked like they were arresting the guy, so I started shooting,” Long said. “Suddenly, they kneed him in the groin, and down he goes.” Long said the police beat the man in the head with the butts of their rifles.

One of the officers noticed Long taking pictures and started screaming at her. Within seconds, Long said, she and the two Iraqi colleagues, Omar Jassim and Ali Jassim, were surrounded by a screaming mob of police and bystanders.

The Iraqi colleagues tried to shield Long from police reaching for her camera. Long said one plainclothes officer approached her from the back, wrenched her arm and spun her around in an attempt to wrest the camera from her.

Long resisted, and the man drew his gun, released the safety catch and pointed it at her.

“He said he would kill us if we didn't hand over the camera,” Long said. She refused.

(more)

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/9427019.htm

[BeHereNow]

16. WOW!

Now that is a woman who deserves to be
called a JOURNALIST.
I am so proud of her!

Note to puppets of the dictator:
Don't mess with midwestern women!
BHN

[dansolo]

17. How would the freepers react

If a reporter, who happens to be an American citizen, were to be killed by Iraqi forces?

[TahitiNut]

19. Uhh... however they're told to react?

I'm convinced their synapses get rewired periodically ... always through the knee. That particular hypothetical would most likely be wired with slack-jawed comments like 'feminazi,' 'what was she wearing,' 'lihbrul media,' and 'she was ugly so no great loss.' That's just a guess, however, based on the typical regurgitational habits of knuckle-draggers.

[lovuian]

18. Reporters are dying left and right...

even Vietnam wasn't as hard on reporters