Journalists send letters to Rumsfeld over reporters’ deaths | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Journalists send letters to Rumsfeld over reporters’ deaths

NEW YORK: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) sent a letter on March 25, to US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, voicing alarm at last week’s shooting deaths of two television reporters in Baghdad. CPJ said the deaths were “especially troubling” as they occurred just days before the military presented a report on the death of Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana, killed by US troops near Baghdad in August last year.

The report contained recommendations for creating safer conditions for journalists working in Iraq. Cameraman Ali Abdul Aziz and reporter Ali al-Khatib of the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television network were killed last Thursday near the Burj al-Hayat hotel in central Baghdad, which had been hit by a rocket. Al-Arabiya said the two staffers were shot dead when US troops opened fire on their vehicle. The US military, which has admitted to shooting and killing the driver of another car at the scene of the rocket attack, has launched an investigation into the claims.
Source: The News
Date:3/27/2004