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| Iraq |
| Marches urge probe into Iraqi journalist murder |
| 2010-05-14 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] Dozens of journalists protested on Thursday to demand a probe into the murder of a young reporter who wrote highly critical articles about the rulers of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. The killing of Sardasht Osman, a final-year English student at Salaheddin University in Arbil, the capital of the Kurdish region, earlier this month provoked widespread consternation and demands for the culprits to be caught. "We are continuing to demonstrate to demand an inquiry to discover the murderers," Kamal Rauf, editor of the Kurdish newspaper Hawlati and one of the protesters in Sulaimaniyah, 270 kilometers (168 miles) north of Baghdad, said. Osman, 22, worked as a journalist for the magazine Ashtiname ("Letter for Peace" in Kurdish) and as an English-Kurdish translator. His body was found 24 hours after he was kidnapped on his university campus in Arbil on May 4. Rauf accused the Kurdistan Democratic Party, of regional president Massud Barzani, of involvement in the murder of Osman, who had criticized the KDP. "We want the creation of an independent commission to look into the murder," Rauf said. "We also want the resignation of the minister of the interior (for the Kurdish region) Karim Sanjari, and those responsible for security in Arbil." The Kurdish president has condemned the journalist's killing and in an official statement said an "investigation is in progress." In its Press Freedom 2009 index published in October, Reporters Without Borders ranked Iraq at a lowly 145th place for media freedom out of 175 countries. |
| Posted by:Fred |