- A journalist in Salahaddin province called on the Iraqi House of Representatives to safeguard fellow reporters after his colleague was killed in Tikrit yesterday.
Marwan Naji Jabara called on the House to "interfere and follow up the issues of journalists as they represent the intellectual front of a country where hundreds of journalists are killed unlawfully by the US forces and armed groups".

Kamaran Salahaddin, 39, was killed when a grenade exploded in his car yesterday evening in Tikrit. The journalist, who obtained an MA degree in media, hosted a weekly show dubbed Iraq and Events on Salahaddin TV. Salahaddin, who was married and had a son, also worked as an adviser at the University of Tikrit.

Jabara described what happened to his colleague as "a criminal offense which targets freedom of express and opinion… the heinous crime comes as part of a scheme to muzzle the mouths.

"We, the journalists in Salahaddin, denounce such practices against our colleagues strongly… What is their crime to be killed in this abhorrent manner?"

Figures from the Press Freedom Index by NGO Reporters Without Borders show that some 186 journalists have been killed since 2003.

The Committee to Protect Journalists also ranked Iraq the second most dangerous country for journalists, when only in February 2011 some five journalists were killed.

Even the families of journalists may become the target of insurgents. Two journalists from Salahaddin were killed on March 29 during an armed attack on a Salahaddin provincial council building. The house of one of the reporters, Sabah al-Bazi, was blown up two days ago in Samara, 65km south of Tikrit. Family members of al-Bazi were wounded in the attack.







AKnews