No Press Freedom for Iraqi Journalists

clipped from washingtonbureau.typepad.com When a press conference by the advisory commission of the Shabak, an Iraqi ethnic minority demanding their rights, turned heated today parliament security guards held 35 journalists against their will and confiscated their equipment. They stopped broadcasts and cut off internet lines so no journalist could file the news to their offices, the Journalistic Freedom Observatory an independent Iraqi organization that monitors violations of press freedom. An Arabic satellite television station reported that a young cameraman was beaten by guards and in Kirkuk a young man named Diyar Abbas Ahmed was shot down as he left the Artist Union in the Northern city. Diyar was a young journalist who worked for The Eye, a privately owned Iraqi News Agency. He is one of 222 media workers who've been killed in Iraq since the start of the war, according to Reporters without Borders. His death is a tragedy and his life was a light.

From the widely -- and sadly -- overlooked Baghdad Observer blog of McClatchy Baghdad bureau chief Leila Fadel.

While the McCain campaign tells us that Iraq is all group hugs, tea parties, and rainbows, the Iraqi govt. makes sure we don't hear anything different. Yay for the "liberation" of Iraq...

See also Thousands march in Baghdad against U.S. pact.