This from Reporters Without Borders (Reporters San Frontieres), one of the main organizations working to protect journalists risking their lives to keep us informed:

US military frees two Iraqi journalists after holding them for several months


Reporters Without Borders voiced relief today at the release yesterday of Majeed Hameed, a correspondent for the pan-Arab TV station Al-Arabiya, and Reuters cameraman Ali Omar Al Mashadani, who had been held by the US military for several months in the Camp Bucca detention centre.

“We call on the US army to show more discernment and restraint in future in order to avoid arresting and holding journalists in an arbitrary manner,” the press freedom organisation said.

“We reiterate our call for the release of two other imprisoned journalists, Abdel Amir Younes Hussein and Samer Mohamed Noor,” Reporters Without Borders added. “The US military should quickly produce evidence to support their allegations against these journalists or free them at once.”

Mashadani was arrested after a search of his home during a routine sweep through his neighbourhood on 8 August. Hameed was arrested by US troops at the funeral of one of his relatives in Ramadi, north of Baghdad, on 15 September. Both were held all this time without any charges being brought against them. Repeated requests by their employers for information about the reasons for their arrests were never answered. Requests by lawyers, families and employers to visit the detainees were denied.

Hussein and Noor are two other journalists working for international news media who have been held for several months without any grounds being given. Hussein, a CBS News cameraman, was arrested on 5 April. Noor, who works for Reuters, was arrested on 4 June. Both are still in Camp Bucca.

Unidentified gunmen meanwhile attacked and killed Louai Salam Radeef, a cameraman with the satellite TV station Al-Baghdadia, on 12 January in Alshoola, north of Baghdad. They also injured his assistant, Amer Mohammed. Radeef was the 77th journalist to be killed in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of US freelance journalist Jill Carroll, who works for the Christian Science Monitor. Carroll was abducted on 7 January in the west Baghdad neighbourhood of Adel, while her Iraqi interpreter, Allan Enwlyah, was killed. A total of 35 journalists have been kidnapped in Iraq since the start of the war.

Phil Sands, a British reporter for the Dubai-based, English-language newspaper Emirates Today, was kidnapped on 26 December and was freed by chance during a US army operation five days later without anyone ever noticing his absence. A US central command spokesman, Capt. Eric Clarke, told the press : “It was an amazing case. No-one ever knew Sands was missing.”


Reporters Without Borders defends imprisoned journalists and press freedom throughout the world. It has nine national sections (Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland). It has representatives in Abidjan, Bangkok, London, Moscow, New York, Tokyo and Washington. And it has more than 120 correspondents worldwide.