The Iraqi government is launching a campaign to help protect journalists working in the war-torn country.
The Iraqi Observer for Journalistic Freedom and the Interior Ministry have launched a plan to protect journalists and help them safely reach areas where events are unfolding.
The program is the first part of a four-stage plan to allow better protection for journalists.
The program will include training journalists in safety procedures and providing them with protective gear such as flak jackets, helmets and first-aid kits, according to the London-based A-Sharq Al-Awsat.
The Interior Ministry said it would set up hotlines between the ministry and the journalists to give them easier access to local police forces and coordinate between the two parties. The plan will also help journalists reach areas where events are taking place, regardless of the security situation there, and in coordination with the security authorities.
Ten journalists have been killed in the line of duty in Iraq since the beginning of 2008, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The number of journalists killed in Iraq since the United States-led invasion in 2003 is 135, not including 51 media-support workers who have been killed. About 85 percent of those killed were Iraqis.
The International News Safety Institute (INSI) welcomed the new initiative of the Iraqi government but cautioned that such plans should be comprehensive and should not single out media outlets in limited areas.
“This has been going on less publicly for some time, but it focused on preferred media such as pro-government Iraqi media,” Sarah de Jong, deputy director of INSI, told The Media Line.
The protective measures should extend beyond Baghdad, where most of the journalists are located, and help journalists in other parts of Iraq, too, she said.
Both local Iraqi journalists and foreigners face grave dangers in their line of work, de Jong said. There have been numerous cases where foreign journalists were abducted and as a result many of them are now holed up in their hotels or their offices in the capital.
Most of the foreign media hire local Iraqi journalists to do the field work, but they face repeated abductions and assassinations, de Jong said.
“It remains a volatile situation,” she added.