Journalists Banned from coverage in Diwaniya

29/2/2016

Security personnel of Iraqi president, Fuad Maasum, attacked Afaq channel cameraman and prohibited 15 other media members from entering the building of the Mayoralty. Alghad Press correspondent Mohammed Alshammary, told Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq that the president’s bodyguards prevented the media staff from entering the building. When cameraman Walid Aun tried to document the incident he was attacked by the security and threatened by weapons and part of his equipment was destroyed. The source added that the cameraman tried to break through but the security tracked him down and confiscated part of his equipment.
It is worth mentioning that the media has coordinated the coverage with the mayoralty and were provided with required permits for coverage. The staff was banned from entrance under the excuse of threatening the president’s safety.
At the time that Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq severely condemns the aggression of the president’s private security that could be described as barbaric at the least, it stresses upon the fact that the president should be the constitution’s prime defendant, and that the violation was carried on by the president’s closest belt, and that the association demands firing his security who were involved in Aldiwaniya incident immediately and to allow the media staff to enter the Mayoralty and hold all those involved accountable for this unprecedented violation.