Some journalists prevented from covering Najaf

Journalists in Baghdad say they are trying to find other ways to cover the fighting in Najaf, as the US-based watchdog, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), on Tuesday condemned attempts by Iraqi authorities to ban the media from the city. Local and international journalists planned to travel to the holy city, some 200 km south of Baghdad with a delegation looking to meet Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr. Sadr’s Mehdi army is fighting US troops near the Imam Ali shrine, which is revered by Shi'ite Muslims around the world. About 60 people from the conference being held to name a national assembly announced on Monday that they would go to Najaf to meet Sadr, however, that has now been delayed. “The minister of interior said he could not guarantee our security before, but we’re very interested to go with the delegation from the national conference,” Leyla Shamkhi, 31, a reporter for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s news agency, told IRIN in Baghdad. “So far, we haven’t heard when that will happen.” Many journalists were forced to leave Najaf on Sunday, but others remained, CPJ said in a press statement. International broadcaster, CNN, for example, has two reporters embedded with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit stationed in Najaf. At least 23 journalists had been embedded with US troops in Najaf in recent weeks, military officials said earlier in the week. Najaf police chief General Ghaleb al-Jazairi told journalists they had two hours to leave at a gathering on Sunday, threatening to arrest Iraqi translators and drivers, the New York Times reported. Iraqi journalists said their agencies were told they had 24 hours to leave. “Journalists didn’t accept the order. They were angry, because this is the best way to get information, by seeing it with our eyes,” Naseer al Nakib, who works for US TV network, CNBC-Arabic service and the Oman Daily newspaper, told IRIN. “Everyone else is getting information by telephone.” Al-Nakib added that the situation was fluid and anything could happen. A journalist working for the Knight-Ridder US news agency, also left Najaf after someone on the street told him he was “with the Americans,” another reporter for the news agency, who declined to be named, told IRIN. A bomb threat at the Bar Najaf Hotel, where many journalists are staying, increased the pressure on journalists, CPJ said. The hotel later came under fire, according to the Independent newspaper of Britain. While there’s “no confirmation that the bullets had been fired by police, the hotel is only a few hundred metres from the local police station and much farther from the main positions of Sadr's insurgents," the Independent told CPJ. Another Iraqi journalist in Baghdad said she would follow the rules laid down by the interior minister because she was scared of what would happen otherwise. “It’s a rule. You have to leave,” Salam Abdul Hassan, a reporter for New Iraq radio, told IRIN in Baghdad, adding that she had not been in Najaf recently. At the same time, US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned that clashes and restrictions against journalists put civilians at increased risk of harm. The US military has not released casualty figures in days. They estimated 360 fighters were killed in the early days of clashes. More than 70 people were killed and more than 140 were injured in fighting late last week in the nearby city of Kut. "The ban on press coverage raises concern that combatants could disregard their obligations to protect civilians," Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of HRW's Middle East and North Africa division said in a statement. Meanwhile, journalists managed to get past checkpoints set up by US and Iraqi forces to report that Sadr’s Mehdi army is operating out of the Imam Ali shrine. Fighting forces must take into account harm to civilians and civilian objects in pursuing their objectives, under international humanitarian law, HRW said.