Press freedom: security elements assault a journalist and his son in Baghdad

Press freedom: security elements assault a journalist and his son in Baghdad


BAGHDAD / The Iraqi Observatory for Press Freedom announced on Saturday that security agents "attacked" the journalist "Manaf al-Moussawi" and his son beat and insulted central Baghdad, asking the Ministry of Interior to investigate the incident and stop such violations.

The Observatory said in a statement, "Eye of Iraq News," that "the elements stationed at a checkpoint in the street Saadoun Central Baghdad, attacked a journalist and a writer was accompanied by one of his sons, on Friday, when they were in his own car."

The Observatory called on the Ministry of the Interior to investigate the incident, which was carried out by a body affiliated with the ministry itself, and to stop such violations and to emphasize the uncontrolled security elements by focusing on uncovering the bombers and terrorists, leaving journalists and writers and not harassing them.

"At 10 am on Friday, I was driving in my car with my eldest son on Al-Sadoun Street in the center of the capital, heading for one of the satellite channels. After passing through an Interior Ministry checkpoint, I stopped to buy some items. Three civilians asked me, I started to scream, they beat my son, I did not imagine they were security agents, or from the Interior Ministry, and I was afraid they were gang members trying to steal the car, or kidnapping us. "

"I knew that the three people who assaulted me and my son were working in the anti-crime police," Moussawi said. "When I intervened to prevent them and talk to them in a polite manner, they took insulting verbal abuse.

Al-Moussawi called on Interior Minister Qassim al-Araji to "investigate the incident and punish the security elements who leave their duties and occupy themselves with the harassment of civilians and citizens so that one of them was talking to my son and telling him that I am a clan elder and a 700-year-old man. I do not know whether he is a tribal elder, , Or the clan. "

It should be noted that the international and domestic media and press centers have confirmed in the past that Iraq has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world for the practice of journalism because of the coverage of the war on the one hand and the violations against journalists and media institutions by government and security agencies, And tribes in many different Iraqi cities.

The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory ( JFO ) is an independent organization, based in Baghdad, concerned with the defense of journalists and press freedoms in the country. It also calls for media, professional, political and cultural pluralism that coexists in peace and dialogue. Finished

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