Security forces deployed to protect a TV channel after threats by armed group
Shafaq News/ Security forces has imposed strict measures around the premises of an Iraqi satellite channel in central Baghdad following threats from armed groups, a reporter for Shafaq News Agency said on Sunday.
Security personnel deployed and closed the road leading to UTV channel, located in the Seventh-day Adventist Church on Baghdad's al-Nidal Street, after the channel building received threats from armed groups.
The reporter attributed the threats to journalist Ahmed Mulla Talal's discussion of armed groups during a television program broadcast on the channel. In its annual World Press Freedom Indicator, Reporters without Borders (RSF) said threats to journalists’ lives and safety, unequal funding, defamation lawsuits, and political instability put Iraq among the world’s countries with “very serious” violations of press freedom.
The report published in May, ranks Iraq 169 out of 180 countries, two spots lower than the previous year.
Although the Iraqi constitution guarantees press freedom, it is contradicted by some laws. In June 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) issued Order 14, which prohibited media from inciting “violence against any individual or group” or inciting “civil disorder”. The CPA invoked this decree several times to permanently shut down a handful of publications, and temporarily ban others.
The Metro Center for Journalists Rights and Advocacy, a Kurdish media watchdog, documented 249 violations committed against journalists and media outlets in 2023, down from 431 in 2022.
