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Reports From Iraq > Tue., Mar. 30, 2004
US Troops Close Another Newspaper
The locked doors of one of Iraq's most important Shi'ite
newspapers with a new sign left by the American Army. |
By Aaron Glantz
BAGHDAD, IRAQ-- A US military Apache helicopter circles over
the shuttered offices of the Shi'ite newspaper - al-Hawza.
A sign on the pad-locked gate indicates anyone who enters
will be arrested. The paper's editors and reporters are in
hiding -- seeking to avoid arrest and indefinite detention.
Laborer Mohammed Mahdi is a supporter of the young Ayatollah
Muqtadar al-Sadar, whose movement ran the newspaper. He was
at the paper when the Americans came bearing a letter from
US Administrator Paul Bremer.
"At 9:30 in the morning 15 hummers came with 6 Iraqi
police cars," he remembers. "They surrounded the
area and closed the newspaper just because the newspaper said
Bremer caused the bombings in Iraq."
In his order closing the paper -- US Administrator Paul Bremer
accused the paper of printing what he called "fake articles"
that incite violence against occupying troops and Iraqi citizens
that support them. One article signaled out by Bremer blamed
the US military for twin bombings of Shi'ite religious sites
in Baghdad and Karbala earlier this month. The paper argued
that American rocket attacks -- not suicide bombers linked
to al-Qaeda -- were responsible for the deaths of more than
250 Shi'ite pilgrims.
This isn't the first time the occupying military has closed
an Iraqi media outlet. Majid el-Samarai, reporter for the
Sunni newspaper el-Zaman:
"They closed al-Mustala newspaper last Summer,"
he says. "They captured the publisher and they captured
an editor."
Majid el-Samarai also points the March 18, shooting death
of two journalists from the satellite channel al-Arabia. On
Monday, the US military admitted killing the two reporters
but said the soldiers were acting "within the rules of
engagement" when they fired on a nearby Volvo and hit
the Arabia reporter's Kia instead.
As for Majid el-Samarai's newspaper, it remains resolutely
anti-American. Founded by a former high-ranking intelligence
officer in Saddam's government, the paper is one of the few
that openly supports the deposed dictator. But he thinks his
paper hasn't been closed because it doesn't appear to be as
angry as al-Hawza.
"There is an American colonel who comes now and then
and takes notes," he says. "I think we walk on the
safe side. Sometimes they get angry at our reports but so
far we have a good relationship. We at Zaman know about American
ideas about journalism"
For the most part, the US isn't leaving the Iraqi media to
Iraqi's. Shortly after the start of the occupation, the Pentagon
announced it was founding a new TV station, al-Iraqiyia, which
would be run by Americans. Then, last month, the State Department
launched a new Arab satellite channel, al-Hurra, the Freedom,
broadcast from a federal building in Virginia. Imad al-Khafagi,
al-Hurra's Bureau Chief in Baghdad, literally came to Iraq
with the American military.
"I used to work with Voice of America," he tells
Pacifica from his office on the 8th Floor of the Palestine
Hotel. "Then when the war was about to start I was selected
to be embedded with the Marines. So I was embedded with the
Marines for a while and then I got to Baghdad and I thought
this is my place."
In his reports, Imad al-Khafagi frequently cites what he
calls "the liberation" of Iraq and says most Iraqi's
support the American troops, but outside the offices of shuttered
al-Hawza newspaper, Mohammed Madhi offers a different perspective.
"Every Iraqi wants the Americans to leave," he
says. "They said: 'We are coming to free you from Saddam.'
Saddam was terrible, but now Saddam is gone and they're still
here. They are the same as Saddam."
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