A Kurdish journalist kidnapped in Erbil, the capital of the semiautonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq, was tortured and then dumped on a main road with two bullets in his head.
Zardasht Osman, 23, was killed because he had lacerated region's two Kurdish parties, including the powerful Barzani clan. A university student, Osman was a freelance journalist who used a pseudonym online
"I am in love with Barzani's daughter," read one of his scathing posts which violated the taboo of even referring to a female family member of the region's president, Massoud Barzani. Osman wondered aloud how he might marry one of Mr. Barzani's daughters.
With dramatic gunsight video footage, the WikiLeaks investigative journalism organization today directly challenged the US version of a deadly tragedy that took the lives of two Reuters staffers in Baghdad in 2007.
The classified video footage shows a US Apache air crew lying about encountering insurgents in central Baghdad. They joke about their victims as they release fusillades of deadly cannon fire: "sweet" "look at that bitch go"
"nice missile." The attack killed Namir Noor-Eldeen, an acclaimed 22-year-old
war photographer and his driver Saeed Chmagh, 40.
One of the Apache crew says he sees six people carrying AK-47s and another with a rocket propelled grenade. The photographer Noor-Eldeen is clearly visible with a camera over his shoulder. His colleague Chmagh is speaking on his mobile phone. It later emerged that he was speaking with a colleague from AFP news agency.
One of the aircrew is heard to say that a member of the group is firing, although the video shows no such activity. In fact the men are wandering nonchalantly around the street.
After one of the two helicopters, nicknamed Crazyhorse, opens fire a crew member exclaims: "Ha ha ha. I hit 'em." A short while another says: "Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards."
The video depicts prolonged aerial surveillance followed by two deadly bursts of 30mm cannon fire. There is a disturbing callousness to the banter as the gunner, pilot and distant commander urge each other on claiming that they are attacking insurgents.
The disturbing footage shows the two Reuters staffers walking around, knowing that the helicopters are overhead. Moments later all hell is unleashed upon them.
Having shot up a group of men, including Noor-Eldeen, the Apache camera returns to show a man, believed to be Chmagh struggle to his feet as a passing van stops to deliver aid.
Iraq is no longer the world's deadliest nation for journalists, (the Philippines is), and no journalists or media workers were abducted last year, another stark improvement from prior years.
Now that journalists are not being killed, efforts are being made to control what they write and broadcast.
Take the newspaper journalist Nadjha Khadum who carved a role for herself during the 1980s war between Iraq and Iran.
She filed dispatches from the front lines, though Saddam Hussein's iron censorship meant that even if she wanted to, she could not report on Iraq's use of chemical and nerve agents against legions of Iranian child soldiers.
An Iraqi government plan to impose restrictive rules on broadcast news media represents is causing alarm.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government have drawn up what press freedom advocates describe as repressive plans that 'fall well short of international standards' for freedom of expression.
The plans appear to contravene the Iraqi constitution, which provides for a free press and represent a return to authoritarianism, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
The new rules would effectively impose government licensing of journalists and media outlets, a tool that authoritarian governments worldwide have long used to censor the news.
A Kurdish journalist kidnapped in Erbil, the capital of the semiautonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq, was tortured and then dumped on a main road with two bullets in his head.
Zardasht Osman, 23, was killed because he had lacerated region's two Kurdish parties, including the powerful Barzani clan. A university student, Osman was a freelance journalist who used a pseudonym online
"I am in love with Barzani's daughter," read one of his scathing posts which violated the taboo of even referring to a female family member of the region's president, Massoud Barzani. Osman wondered aloud how he might marry one of Mr. Barzani's daughters.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=2152daf1-cb5a-4e27-97b6-11dcab63489d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=06378c62-058c-4b45-acf3-026b4b203606)
