Posted on 08/18/2003 8:55:23 PM PDT by TrebleRebel
Beirut, Aug 19, IRNA -- The US forces' Sunday act of murdering Mazen Dana, a Palestinian photojournalist in Baghdad, raised the outrage of the Lebanese and Arab world journalist circles.
Head of the Lebanese Writers Union (LWU), Mulhim Karam, on Monday ondemned the brutal murdering of that Palestinian photojournalist, emphasizing, "The US army's move can only be interpreted as another case of state terrorism against free flow of Information from the occupied Iraq."
Issuing a special communique on the issue, the LWU, too, said, "Dana was not carrying bombs to kill the innocent people with, but simply his camera, with which he intended to record the truth of what is going on in Iraq today, to be conveyed to Arab world press readers."
It adds, "The LWU, hand in hand with the other Arab world and global press unions, will seek for ways to avoid the occurrence of such horrendous crimes against journalists."
The Arab World Photographers and Filmmakers Union, too, issuing a communique in Beirut, emphasized, "Pentagon, that boasts about its precision missiles, and its ability to view very small objects from far distance, is apparently unable to tell the difference between a camera and a bomb."
The communique adds, "The assassination of the Palestinian photojournalist added another dark page to the thick file of the US and British occupier armies in Iraq and showed that for those countries reflection of the truth equals acts of terrorism."
Mazin Dana, 41, was a Palestinian photojournalist working currently for the British Reuters new agency, who was killed in the west of Baghdad by US military forces on Sunday.
Mazin was shot dead while working near a US run prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, according to witnesses.
Journalists had gone to the prison after the U.S. military said a mortar bomb attack there a day before had killed six Iraqis and wounded 59.
Dana's death brings to 17 the number of journalists or their assistants who have died in Iraq since the war began on March 20, though some of the deaths were accidental or natural. Two others have been missing since the first days of the war.
On April 8, Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian, died when a US tank fired a shell at the 15th floor of the Palestine Hotel, the base for many foreign media in Baghdad.
Dana, worked for Reuters mostly in the West Bank city of Al Khalil.
Married with four children, he was one of the company's most experienced conflict journalists and had worked in Baghdad before, shortly after US troops entered the city.
He was awarded an International Press Freedom Award in 2001 by the Committee to Protect Journalists for his work in Al Khalil where he was wounded and beaten by the racist-Zionist militants many times.
Two words -- Daniel Pearle
Well, that speaks volumes.
Suddnely, you spot something on the thermal sight.
It could be . . .
A reporter covering combat.
or, it could be . . .
An Iraqi anti-tank missile.
You make the call.
Be safe. Kill it.
Beer for those who survived.
Alligator tears to the idiot with a combat camera pointing his unit at a US army tank in combat from an enemy position.
Good job ARMY!
Note to self: Don't look like the enemy after US soldiers are just attacked.
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