Go Ahead, Gloat Over Eason

Go ahead and chunk it up about firing everybody who says something you don't like. Jordan, Rather and Peter Barnette have all ended up more right than not in the end. If you gloated about any of these but didn't care who else tells lies BIG LIES, as long as it was something you wanted to hear, then you have just shown yourself for what you are.

The International Federation of Journalists today renewed calls for an end to the targeting and killing of journalists and media staff in Iraq following the brutal assassination of three journalists and a support driver in the last month.

“We are witnessing an unprecedented witch-hunt against the Iraqi press corps,” said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. “Political and religious leaders who claim to defend democratic change in this war-stricken country must speak out against this terror”.

[snip]

“Two years after the US military occupation of Iraq the terrifying ordeal of media in the country continues with targeted attacks on the free and independent media,” said White.

On April 8th this year the IFJ and Iraqi journalists they plan to hold demonstrations in towns across Iraq to protest over impunity in the killing of journalists. They say that all cases of violence, intimidation and killing of media staff must be investigated, independently and exhaustively. The date is the second anniversary of the US attack on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad in which two journalists died. These are two of 13 media deaths at the hands of US soldiers, which have yet be properly investigated and explained.

“On that day journalists around the world will once again protest over impunity secrecy over media deaths and, in particular, at the failure of the United States to take responsibility for its actions in Iraq which have led to the killing of journalists,” said White.

[snip]

Last week, the IFJ Solidarity Centre in Algeria along with colleagues from the National Union of Journalists in Algeria held a day of solidarity for Aubenas, Al-Saadi and Sgrena in Algiers to express solidarity with their colleagues saying that the “targeting of journalists in Iraq is futile for the Iraqi cause and will only discredit any positive steps already made”.

“We have watched with horror at the video appeals forced upon our colleagues from La Liberation and Il Manifesto,” said White. “Whether this is the work of mercenary thugs or political extremists does not matter, what matters is that they are released”.

More than 70 journalists and media workers have been killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion nearly two years ago. 50 of these were local Iraqis.