April 15, 2009

Press Freedom in Iraq

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The press is coming under renewed attack from the Iraqi government:

The Iraqi military put local journalists on notice on Monday that their organizations could be shut down for misquoting officials, while the Iraqi government accused the news media of deliberately seeking to promote sectarian strife.

The top military spokesman in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, said he was filing a lawsuit seeking to close the Baghdad office of Al Hayat, one of the most prominent newspapers in the Arab world, as well as the satellite signal of Al Sharqiya, a popular Iraqi television channel that has been a strong critic of the government.

Marc Lynch comments:

That’s not a good sign. Reminds me of the bad old days of 2004-2005 when the Iraqi government and MNF-I were routinely attacking the Arab media for fueling the insurgency and the offices of al-Jazeera and other satellite television stations were shuttered….At a time when many Iraqis and Iraq-watchers worry about a creeping authoritarianism in the Maliki government, this move against al-Hayat and al-Sharqiya is a screaming red flag.  Let’s hope that it is quickly reversed.

Some of this may be creeping authoritarianism, but it also seems to be related to the steady breakdown of the celebrated Sunni Awakening.  The Sunni tribal chiefs were basically bribed to cooperate with the central government, but as the bribes have dwindled so has the cooperation — and apparently the Maliki government would just as soon not have anyone around to report this.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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