Journalists demand answers from US over Iraq killings
The Institute of Maltese Journalists has joined the International Federation of Journalists in calling on the United States government to end all speculation over "targeted killings" of journalists and media staff by providing "credible and convincing"...
The Institute of Maltese Journalists has joined the International Federation of Journalists in calling on the United States government to end all speculation over "targeted killings" of journalists and media staff by providing "credible and convincing" reports on incidents in which 14 media staff have been killed since the invasion of the country in March 2003.
"The United States stands accused of failing to meet its obligations to deliver justice and fair treatment to the victims of violence by its own soldiers," said IFJ general secretary Aidan White in a letter to President George Bush on Friday.
Similar letters calling for the US to carry out an exhaustive investigation into these cases have been sent by IFJ affiliates to US officials.
April 8 marks the second anniversary of the US attack on Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, which at the time contained scores of reporters and media people reporting on the US invasion. Two journalists were killed and others wounded. On the same morning, a journalist was killed when the Baghdad offices of the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera was attacked by US fighter planes.
The IFJ says there are another 11 other cases of unexplained killings in which US soldiers were involved that require answers.
"The ordeal of family, friends and colleagues of media victims continues as they wait for justice from the authorities about how and why their loved ones died," said Mr White.
The IFJ says that two years after the invasion of Iraq the pain of the war is deeply felt by journalists and media staff and particularly by Iraqi journalists themselves who joined today's protests. The Federation accuses the US of carrying out "whitewash" reports of the killings - and in many instances there have been no reports at all.
"These reports follow the same unconvincing and incredible pattern: Secrecy over the detail and nature of the report, a failure to examine all the evidence, paltry and cruelly insensitive shrugs of regret, and complete exoneration of responsibility of US personnel at all levels of command," said Mr White. "It is denial of justice on a shocking scale."