zimv20
Mar 29, 2004, 12:47 AM
link (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/29/international/worldspecial/29PRES.html?hp)
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 28 — American soldiers shut down a popular Baghdad newspaper on Sunday and tightened chains across the doors after the occupation authorities accused it of printing lies that incited violence.
[...]
The American authorities said Al Hawza could reopen in 60 days. The paper's editors, however, said they had been put out of business.
"We have been evicted from our offices, and we have no jobs," Saadoon Mohsen Thamad, a news editor, said as he stared at a large padlock hanging from the front gate. "How are we going to continue?"
Among Iraqi journalists, Al Hawza was known for printing wild rumors, especially anti-American ones. A broadsheet of about eight pages, the paper is considered a mouthpiece for Moktada al-Sadr, a fiery young Shiite cleric and one of the most outspoken critics of the Americans.
The letter ordering the paper closed, signed by L. Paul Bremer III, the top administrator in Iraq, cited what the American authorities called several examples of false reports in Al Hawza, including a February dispatch that said the cause of an explosion that killed more than 50 Iraqi police recruits was not a car bomb, as occupation officials had said, but an American missile.
Many newspapers and television stations have sprouted in Iraq since the fall of the Hussein government. But under a law passed by the occupying authorities in June, a news media organization must be licensed, and that license can be revoked if the organization publishes or broadcasts material that incites violence or civil disorder or "advocates alterations to Iraq's borders by violent means."
But the letter outlining the reasons for taking action against Al Hawza did not cite any material that directly advocated violence. Several Iraqi journalists said that meant there was no basis to shut Al Hawza down.
"That paper might have been anti-American, but it should be free to express its opinion," said Kamal Abdul Karim, night editor of the daily Azzaman.
Omar Jassem, a freelance reporter, said he thought that democracy meant many viewpoints and many newspapers. "I guess this is the Bush edition of democracy," he said.
[...]
Tom Rosenstiel, vice chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, said there was a basic irony in Americans' practicing censorship in Iraq.
"If you're trying to promote democracy in a country that has never had it, you have to lead by example," Mr. Rosenstiel said. "I'm not in Iraq. But it's hard for me to see how the suppression of information, even false information, is going to help our cause."
woo-hoo! freedom!
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 28 — American soldiers shut down a popular Baghdad newspaper on Sunday and tightened chains across the doors after the occupation authorities accused it of printing lies that incited violence.
[...]
The American authorities said Al Hawza could reopen in 60 days. The paper's editors, however, said they had been put out of business.
"We have been evicted from our offices, and we have no jobs," Saadoon Mohsen Thamad, a news editor, said as he stared at a large padlock hanging from the front gate. "How are we going to continue?"
Among Iraqi journalists, Al Hawza was known for printing wild rumors, especially anti-American ones. A broadsheet of about eight pages, the paper is considered a mouthpiece for Moktada al-Sadr, a fiery young Shiite cleric and one of the most outspoken critics of the Americans.
The letter ordering the paper closed, signed by L. Paul Bremer III, the top administrator in Iraq, cited what the American authorities called several examples of false reports in Al Hawza, including a February dispatch that said the cause of an explosion that killed more than 50 Iraqi police recruits was not a car bomb, as occupation officials had said, but an American missile.
Many newspapers and television stations have sprouted in Iraq since the fall of the Hussein government. But under a law passed by the occupying authorities in June, a news media organization must be licensed, and that license can be revoked if the organization publishes or broadcasts material that incites violence or civil disorder or "advocates alterations to Iraq's borders by violent means."
But the letter outlining the reasons for taking action against Al Hawza did not cite any material that directly advocated violence. Several Iraqi journalists said that meant there was no basis to shut Al Hawza down.
"That paper might have been anti-American, but it should be free to express its opinion," said Kamal Abdul Karim, night editor of the daily Azzaman.
Omar Jassem, a freelance reporter, said he thought that democracy meant many viewpoints and many newspapers. "I guess this is the Bush edition of democracy," he said.
[...]
Tom Rosenstiel, vice chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, said there was a basic irony in Americans' practicing censorship in Iraq.
"If you're trying to promote democracy in a country that has never had it, you have to lead by example," Mr. Rosenstiel said. "I'm not in Iraq. But it's hard for me to see how the suppression of information, even false information, is going to help our cause."
woo-hoo! freedom!
