Police confirmed yesterday the killing of two Iraqi journalists whose deaths were condemned by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent group monitoring press freedom worldwide.
Safa Ismaiel Enad, a 31-year old freelance photographer for several media outlets including the now-defunct newspaper al-Watan, was shot on Tuesday by two gunmen in a photo print shop in eastern Baghdad, police and the committee said in an announcement.
Al-Watan, based in Tikrit, was affiliated with the Iraqi National Movement, a party established in 2001 and was funded after the 2003 invasion by the Coalition Provisional Authority. It closed two months ago for lack of money and is now trying to re-establish itself as a magazine.
Another journalist and representative of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, Hadi Anawi al-Joubouri, 56, was ambushed on Tuesday as he drove between Baqubah and Khalis, about 60km northeast of Baghdad. His body was found riddled with bullets.
"We are outraged by the senseless murder of Safa Isma'il Enad and Hadi Anawi al-Joubouri," CPJ executive director Joel Simon said in a statement. "Journalists continue to be targeted simply because they report the news in Iraq and their murderers have gone unpunished by the Iraqi authorities."
Murder accounts for 64 percent of work-related deaths among journalists and media support workers in Iraq, with crossfire and combat-related deaths accounting for the rest, CPJ said. In all, 79 journalists and 28 media workers have been killed in Iraq since the war began.
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