| 27 Jul 2010 |
|
Channel loses ?15 employees
- Text size
Tuesday, Jul 27, 2010
Gulf News
Many wounded in targeted raids
Dubai Yesterday’s bombing of Al Arabiya’s Baghdad office brought the death toll of the channel’s employees to 15 since the start of the war in Iraq in 2003.
Four people were killed and 15 were injured yesterday when a suicide bomber detonated a 120kg bomb in a van outside Al Arabiya’s Baghdad office at 9.25am Baghdad time yesterday.
According to the Iraq-based Journalism Freedom Observatory, a total of 249 media workers have been killed since the US-led invasion of 2003.
“The intensity of the bomb and its timing means that it was intended to destroy the whole office and kill everyone there. It was a professionally planned attack,” said Mazen Hayek, spokesperson for Al Arabiya.
Among the injured were security guards, internal administration staff and those from news production teams, he said. Iraq’s internet security services have discovered the identity of the perpetrator, said Hayek, but they did not specify if he or she belongs to any known militant group operating in the country.
Having lost a total of 15 Al Arabiya staff killed and “tens injured” in the past seven years, Hayek said the channel was being made to pay the “price of freedom of expression”.
The channel is said to be the most popular news channel in Iraq. In September 2008, its Baghdad bureau chief Jawad Hattab escaped unharmed after spotting a bomb attached to his car, which was eventually detonated by remote control.
In February 2006, presenter Atwar Bahjat and two colleagues were kidnapped and murdered in the mainly Sunni town of Samarra as they covered the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine, an attack that plunged the country into sectarian bloodshed.
The channel, which is perceived by extremist groups as being too pro-Western, has been no stranger to attack by suspected Sunni Arab insurgents or pressure from Iraq’s Shiite-led government.
Its ownership by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf investors has also made it the focus of suspicions by Iraq’s Shiite-led government that its news agenda reflects the concerns of their Sunni governments.
In September 2006, it was banned from reporting out of Iraq over its coverage of key parliament proceedings.
— With additional inputs from AFP
wages of war
By Abbas Al Lawati?Staff Reporter
© Gulf News 2010. All rights reserved.
Zawya is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties and subscribers. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers, or other information or content expressed or made available by those third parties, including information providers, subscribers or other users of the Service, are those of the respective author(s) or distributor(s) and not of the Company. The Company neither endorses nor is responsible for the accuracy or reliability of any opinion, advice or statement made on the Service by anyone other than authorized Service employee spokespersons while acting in their official capacities. The Company is not responsible for any infringement of intellectual property rights or breach of any applicable law or regulation, including regulation in relation to financial services or the distribution of financial products, defamation, data protection, telecommunications (including regulations relating to excessive use, spamming or other abusive activities) or obscene, offensive or illegal content). Under no circumstances will the Company be liable for any loss or damage caused by a member's reliance on information obtained through the Service. It is the responsibility of member to evaluate the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information, opinion, advice or other content available through the Service. Please seek the advice of professionals, as appropriate, regarding the evaluation of any specific information, opinion, advice or other content.
Read the full Member Agreement
http://www.zawya.com/legal/NewsLetter.cfm?name=disclaimer
Loading ...
Post a Comment
1.1 Contain any material which is libelous or defamatory of any person, is obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory or causes damage to the reputation of any person or organisation.
1.2 Promote sexually explicit material, violence, discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age or any illegal activity.
1.3 Be made in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence.
1.4 Be threatening, abuse or invade another's privacy, or cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety.
1.5 Be used to impersonate any person, to misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person, or be likely to deceive any person.
1.6 Give the impression that they represent Zawya.
1.7 Advocate, promote or assist any unlawful act such as (by way of example only) copyright infringement or computer misuse.