Thursday, March 28, 2024

Baghdad

Press freedom group urges release of kidnapped Iraqi journalist

 Press freedom group urges release of kidnapped Iraqi journalist

Abdullah Latif, a kidnapped Iraqi reporter.

Abdullah Latif, a kidnapped Iraqi reporter.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) A press freedom advocacy group has accused security apparatuses of kidnapping an Iraqi journalist on Monday along with six other students.

The Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq said an armed group, which it did not identify, kidnapped Abdullah Latif, a student rights activist and a reporter for Tareek Alshaab, a mouthpiece of the Iraqi Communist Party.

The organization said the incident took place at al-Saadoun area in Baghdad early Monday. He was among seven other students taken from the same area to an unknown destination.

According to the organization, the incident was indicative to a “serious persecution and oppression of freedoms”.

It urged the Iraqi cabinet and security authorities to work on the release of the seven students and to identify the agencies behind their kidnapping.

In December, a report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said seven reporters were killed in Iraq in 2016, out of a total of 57 who were killed in conflict areas across the world, putting Iraq 158th on its world index.

In October, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Iraq was the world’s top country in terms of impunity regarding journalists’ killing, attributing the fact to the involvement of extremist militias in the murders.

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