The End of Press Freedom in Iraq?

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Juan Cole, Informed Comment

Al-Zaman, the Times of Baghdad, reports [Ar.] that press freedom may soon be a thing of the past in Iraq. The Iraqi parliament on Monday passed a resolution calling on the president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, to intervene to close down the offices of the al-Sharqiyah television channel in Iraq, and to close down a newspaper, al-Zaman itself! Both are owned by a media group headed by Saad al-Bazzaz, and they have a mild secular, Arab nationalist tone. It is not a point of view welcome to the Shiite fundamentalists who dominate the Iraqi parliament. The parliamentarians were upset about the negative coverage in the two news outlets of the vote last Wednesday by a bare majority to create the rules for the establishment of provincial confederacies. The vote was rammed through by a simple majority once a bare quorum had been established, despite the boycott of the vote by several major political blocs, including those of the Sunni Arabs...

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Parliament asks government to close Azzaman

A statement by the Iraqi parliament urges Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki to close down Azzaman newspaper. The statement also asks Maliki to ban Al-Sharqiya television, the nation-wide network operated in coordination with Azzaman newspaper. The statement issued Monday cites what the parliament describes the outlets’ coverage of a recent draft law the legislators passed on turning the country into a federal state. Both the newspaper and al-Sharqiya television were critical of the law, warning that it represents a prelude to the division of the country on sectarian and ethnic grounds. Azzamman is Iraq’s most read newspaper. Al-Shariqiya is the most viewed television network in the country...

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Parliament asks government to close Azzaman

A statement by the Iraqi parliament urges Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki to close down Azzaman newspaper....

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