On April 8 Reporters Without Borders
called on US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld to provide
evidence that the offices of the pan-Arab TV station Al-Jazeera
and the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad were not deliberately fired
at by US forces earlier in the day in attacks that killed three
journalists.
"We are
appalled at what happened because it was known that both places
contained journalists," said the organization's secretary-
general Robert Ménard. "Film shot by the French TV
station France 3 and descriptions by journalists show the
neighborhood was very quiet at that hour and that the US tank
crew took their time, waiting for a couple of minutes and
adjusting its gun before opening fire."
"This
evidence does not match the US version of an attack in self-
defense and we can only conclude that the US Army deliberately
and without warning targeted journalists. US forces must prove
that the incident was not a deliberate attack to dissuade or
prevent journalists from continuing to report on what is
happening in Baghdad," he said.
"We are
concerned at the US Army's increasingly hostile attitude
towards journalists, especially those non-embedded in its
military units. Army officials have also remained deplorably
silent and refused to give any details about what happened when
a British ITN TV crew was fired on near Basra on 22 March,
killing one journalist and leaving two others missing.
"Very many
non-embedded journalists have complained about being refused
entry to Iraq from Kuwait, threatened with withdrawal of
accreditation and being held and interrogated for several
hours. One group of non-embedded journalists was held in secret
for two days and roughed up by US military police,"
Ménard said.
Ukrainian
cameraman Taras Protsyuk (35), normally attached to Reuters
office in Warsaw, and José Couso, a Spanish cameraman
for the Spanish TV station Telecinco, were killed in today's
attack on the Palestine Hotel. Three other journalists were
wounded when their rooms were hit by a shell fired by the US
tank.
General Buford
Blount, commander of the US Third Infantry Division, admitted
that the tank had fired a shell at the hotel. He claimed it was
in response to rocket fire and other shooting from the
hotel.
Al-Jazeera
cameraman Tarek Ayoub was also killed today in US bombing of
the pan-Arab TV station's offices elsewhere in the city.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF by its
French initials) defends imprisoned journalists and press
freedom throughout the world, as well as the right to inform
the public and to be informed, in accordance with Article 19 of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Reporters Without
Borders has nine national sections (in Austria, Belgium,
France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the
United Kingdom), representatives in Abidjan, Bangkok, Buenos
Aires, Istanbul, Montreal, Moscow, Nairobi, New York, Tokyo and
Washington and more than a hundred correspondents
worldwide.
Also in this
section:
US State Department report on human rights in
Panama
Frei Betto, Lula's
assault on hunger
Girvan, The Greater
Caribbean This Week
Jackson, China's news
blackout is our health hazard
Tikkun, Give us news, not
propaganda
RSF, US attack on the
international press
CPJ, US attack on the
international press
