Security member prevents Asia TV from coverage in Baghdad

3/4/2020

A security officer was banned from coverage in Baghdad on Friday evening.

Asia channel’s staff, consisting of fellow reporter Tarek al-Rubaie and cameraman Raed Fouad, were on a press mission to convey the latest on the curfew in Baghdad, and a member of the security forces prevented them from covering, the coordinator of Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq said.

A video circulated by some social media sites showed a security man near a checkpoint preventing the channel’s staff from covering and asking them to leave immediately.

The Association condemns the attack on colleagues at Asia Channel, considering it a violation of the freedom of journalists as it expresses fears that such attacks on journalists will continue, amid government silence.

The association also calls on the Ministry of Interior to act immediately to stop these unjustified abuses and to instruct its members to allow the press and the media to convey the events taking place on ground, without attacking them in the course of their work.