IRAQ: Armed group targets newspaper headquarters

Record ID: 353821

  • Title: IRAQ: Armed group targets newspaper headquarters
  • Date: 2nd April 2013
  • Summary: BAGHDAD, IRAQ ( APRIL 2, 2013) (REUTERS) JOURNALISTS OF ADDUSTOUR NEWSPAPER STANDING IN COURTYARD JOURNALISTS STANDING NEAR BROKEN COMPUTER MONITORS AND PRINTERS IN COURTYARD COMPUTER MONITORS AND BROKEN PRINTERS ON GROUND VARIOUS OF PILE OF BURNT NEWSPAPER ON GROUND VARIOUS OF EMPLOYEE OF ADDUSTOUR NEWSPAPER TOUCHING DAMAGED MONITOR (SOUNDBITE) (ARABIC) YASSER TALAS,
  • Embargoed: 17th April 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Crime
  • Reuters ID: LVA1JWJZNGW04F19N36TF42CHVHN
  • Story Text: Employees of Iraq's Addustour newspaper on Tuesday (April 2) inspected the damage caused by an armed group attack at the newspaper's headquarters the day before.
    The armed group broke into the newspaper building in Karrada district in central Baghdad on Monday (April 1), beating guards and journalists and burning editions of the newspaper, said an eyewitness.
    Yasser Talas, an employee of Addustour newspaper, said an armed group of about 50 people attacked the newspaper office.
    "Yesterday an armed militia of about 50 people attacked the headquarters of the newspaper and beat the journalists with batons and insulted us. They burned some newspapers and the archives of the newspaper. They also threatened the journalists with death if they target the attackers' group which is known by the government as a group with irregular policies," he said.
    Addustour newspaper was one of the four newspaper headquarters attacked on Monday in Baghdad, according to local media reports.
    Yasser said newspaper workers were able to identify the group behind the attack.
    ''They had American bayonets, and iron boxing gloves, an American make. They beat us badly and insulted us, and the newspaper. They said things that I can't repeat. But thank God, after they left with our basic resistance, we were able to get a document that proves the identity of the attackers, so the law will be the judge," he added.
    Journalism remains a dangerous profession in Iraq more than 10 years after the U.S-led invasion, which has killed at least 134,000 Iraqi civilians and may have contributed to the deaths of as many as four times that number, according to the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.
    When security forces, insurgents, journalists and humanitarian workers were included, the war's death toll rose to an estimated 176,000 to 189,000, the study said.
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