12/7/2019
Inews and Asia satellite channels’ cadres were subjected to an attack during a public stand in Zubair district in Basrah, on Thursday.
Ehab Najim, Asia correspondent, told Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq: “I was on duty to cover a public stand in Zubair, Basrah, and when my colleague Amin Alsilmy from Inews, was shooting the stand that was about to recite the national anthem, we were surprised by one of the stand’s organizers who began to push him away aggressively . Another colleague, Hasan Sabah, from Inews, tried to intervene along with me to understand what was going on but the tone of the argument started to rise. Members of the Municipality council interfered as they grabbed the coordinator away. But after the stand was over the coordinator continued his aggressive tone and repeated threats against all of us”.
Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq considers the abovementioned incident a clear hostility, in spite of it being carried out individually, but the same conduct is adopted by the VIPs guards, security elements and coordinators repeatedly.
The association condemns the continuing violations that are directed against the media persons during coverage and demands that the administrative authority of Zubair to track the incident and hold the assailant accountable and to prevent such incidents in the future.
