Journalists in the southern Iraqi city of Basra are involved in a dispute with local officials over what watchdog organizations have said is an increasing interference and hostility of the local government and security forces towards media workers, while the governor of the province is accused of personally threatening a television correspondent on the same day that he issued a statement in support of the rights of media workers.
On Tuesday, the Iraqi Journalistic Freedoms Observatory (JFO) issued a statement in Arabic saying that the governor of the province had issued an order forbidding the correspondent of the US-funded al-Hurra satellite network from preparing his reports, and threatened to enforce the ban with the use of force.
Mazin al-Tayyar, the al-Hurra correspondent, told the JFO that the governor, affiliated with the predominantly Shi'a Fadhila Party that controls the provincial administration, informed him of the ban by telephone after he saw a report that al-Tayyar had prepared for the network in which citizens of Basra described "their suffering that derives from the lack of security and services," in JFO's words.
Al-Tayyar told the JFO that he received a phone call from the governor on Monday shortly after the report aired, in which the governor lodged accusations against al-Tayyar, accusing the al-Hurra reporter of working against the interests of Basra. According to al-Tayyar, the governor said that he had "followed al-Tayyar's reporting for some time."
The governor threatened to enforce the ban on with force, Tayyar also said, according to the press rights watchdog's statement.
Al-Tayyar told the JFO that amid his shock at the accusations and threat against him practicing his work, the only response he could muster to the governor was a clarification that he was not, in fact, "against Basra," and that he transmitted his reports with "all honesty and sincerity."
JFO adds that Tayyar was not the only journalist to face violations by local authorities in the last week in Basra, noting that the guards of the southern Iraqi Oil Company blocked journalists on Saturday from entering the company's cultural center to cover a conference with the oil minister Husayn al-Shahristani, while last Thursday Iraqi Army forces blocked Husayn al-Haydari correspondent from the al-Masar television station from covering security matters in Basra, including attacking the reporter with physical blows.
A police officer "threatened to smash my camera over my head if I did not leave" the scene, al-Haydari said, according to a separate statement released by JFO last week.
JFO called for emergency action by the Iraqi Parliament to respond to the violations against Iraqi journalists.
Following a series of alleged assaults on journalists in the province, "tens" of members of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, Basra branch, demonstrated Monday in the city to protest violations against journalists in the city at the hands of some of the security agencies, according to reports in Arabic in the Iraqi media.
Haydar al-Mansouri, the chairman of the local syndicate said that he and his colleagues were protesting violations against journalists in Basra, including the assault on al-Haydari, the al-Masar correspondent, as well as an earlier violation by forces of the Iraqi Army 14th Division against Talib al-Husayni, the editor of the magazine al-Marbad, who had been arrested and beaten in January.
Al-Mansouri told al-Sabah, the quasi-official newspaper, that the Basra provincial council had formed a committee to inquire into the violations against journalists in Basra.
Meanwhile, in a seeming effort to deflect the accusations by Basra journalists, the governor of the province, Muhammad Musbih al-Wa'ili, issued a statement condemning the violations against journalists in the province on the part of Basra's security forces, on the same day that al-Tayyar, the al-Hurra correspondent, said he received the phone call from al-Wa'ili banning him from his work.
Journalists in the province faced "a violation of their professional and moral duties," in a way that "disrupts their noble goals," the governor said, saying that "we feel great concern" over the "provocative way" that security forces treat journalists.
Journalists and media workers should be able to conduct their work "without fear or threats," the governor said, demanding that the security forces develop specific mechanisms for assuring that journalists can conduct their work.
The governor's statement did not address the claims by the al-Hurra reporter lodged the same day that the governor telephoned him personally to block his work and threaten him with violence.
