ibrahim-jassam

CPJ called on U.S. military forces to charge or release journalist Ibrahim Jassam, who has been imprisoned in Iraq for one year as of today. Jassam, a freelance cameraman and photographer working for Reuters, has not been charged with a crime, and no evidence against him has ever been disclosed. U.S. forces have made only vague assertions that he is a "threat." Our statement follows: 

By Joel Simon

In 2008, the numbers of journalists killed and jailed both dropped for the first time since the war on terror was launched in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. This is welcome news, but it is tempered by harsh realities. The war on terror had a devastating effect on journalists, and the trends will be difficult to reverse. Over seven years, journalists were targeted for murder in record numbers, while deterioration in the international legal environment led to a surge in journalist imprisonments.

Eleven journalists were killed because of their work, making Iraq the most dangerous nation for the press for the sixth consecutive year. Nevertheless, the figure was the lowest yearly toll since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003--and two-thirds lower than the annual figures for 2007 or 2006.

U.S. government actions against journalists abroad continued to sully the nation’s image. Authorities finally freed two long-detained journalists, one in Iraq and the other at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, without ever charging them with a crime or producing any evidence to support the imprisonments. But the military continued its alarming practice of holding journalists in open-ended detention without due process. At least one journalist was being held without charge when CPJ conducted its annual census of imprisoned journalists.

New York, September 4, 2008--The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the detention of two Iraqi journalists by the U.S. military in separate incidents and calls on the authorities to make clear any charges against them or release them immediately.

Omar Husham, 28‎, was arrested along with his father and two brothers at his house in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiyah, The Associated Press reported. He is a cameraman with Baghdad TV‎, a satellite channel owned by the Iraqi Islamic Party. A colleague said that Husham had press badges issued by the U.S. authorities in Iraq.