A disturbing piece in today’s NY Times about the plight of Iraqi journalists. Not only are they being systematically slaughtered by Sunni terrorists (sorry, “freedom fighters”). They’re also being persecuted under the draconian laws of the Shia-dominated government. This is the democracy we’ve created. This is the liberation of Iraq.
The press restrictions extend to Iraqi Kurdistan, often thought of as an untroubled oasis. Asos Hardi, editor of Awene, who I interviewed during my stay in Suleimaniya in March, has been caught up in the dragnet (and not for the first time):
In May, a court in Sulaimaniya, in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, sentenced two journalists, Twana Osman and Asos Hardi, to six-month suspended jail terms for an article claiming that a Kurdish official had two telephone company employees fired after they cut his phone service for failing to pay his bill.
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