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PARIS : Threatened with kidnap or death, European journalists are reducing coverage of the Iraqi election process to a strict minimum.
Both the French and the Italian governments have formally advised journalists not to travel to the violence-wracked country because of the serious risks and critical security situation.
The warnings followed the disappearance of Florence Aubenas, 43, a senior correspondent for the French daily Liberation, who has not been seen since she left her hotel with her interpreter on Wednesday last week.
As a result, several French news outlets that had been planning to cover the elections scheduled for January 30 said they were now thinking again. Some had already stopped sending correspondents there after French journalists Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot were captured and held for four months before being released December 21.
News editors point out that correspondents in Baghdad cannot leave their hotel rooms without incurring major risks. The United States is organizing military escorts so that journalists can cover the election, but this also would restrict their freedom of action.
Leonard Doyle, foreign editor of The Independent in London, said, "we make a big effort not to do what you might call 'hotel journalism,' and we make a very big effort not to sub-contract work to local Iraqi journalists -- we think that's basically unfair. It's a risk to them. We carry the same risk."
Nevertheless, he said the newspaper's policy was to stay "as low profile as we can."
The murder of Margaret Hassan, the British-Iraqi aid official kidnapped in October, was a grim reminder to journalists of the need for what Bronwyn Maddox, foreign editor of The Times of London, called "extreme care."
Many newspapers have pulled out journalists based in Iraq, or at best send experienced correspondents for only brief periods.
Those based in the capital do their best to merge into the background, like Germany's Stern magazine correspondent, who speaks fluent Arabic and has grown a beard, or Stephen Farrell, The Times Middle East correspondent, who wears both a beard and a keffiyah.
Despite such precautions, Farrell said he "almost never" appears on the street unless he's on the way to a meeting pre-arranged with Iraqis who can be trusted.
News outlets in neighboring Turkey rely on reports sent by Turkish-speaking citizens of Iraq or send reporters for brief periods to the northern part of the country, but stay away from Baghdad and the so-called Sunni Triangle.
Like many news organizations, the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung in Munich has moved its correspondent out of Baghdad but kept him in the Gulf region. The German magazine Der Spiegel covers Iraq from Cairo. Some journalists are planning to cover the event from Amman in neighboring Jordan,which is considered to be safe.
The three main Russian news agencies, Interfax, Itar-Tass and Ria Novosti, have had no correspondents on the ground for some time, and do not intend to send anyone to cover the elections. The three biggest Russian TV channels pulled out their journalists as soon as Washington announced that the military phase of its invasion was over in 2003, but were planning to send teams to cover the election.
The big Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad said it would send journalists for the election -- but not to Bagdhad, which is too insecure. They would remain in the Kurdish part of northern Iraq or in the south.
Polish radio and TV and the Polish press agency PAP cover Iraq via correspondents based with Poland's military contingent Diwaniyah, in the south.
A few of the TV crews operating in Iraq have chosen to travel only with armed guards, although many other journalists are reluctant to go down this route for fear of losing their neutrality.
Those who remain in Baghdad, like Farrell, have learned to take extraordinary precautions, like travelling in separate automobiles, keeping in touch via walkie-talkies using code words and taking a backup car for security.
The bottom line, said Farrell is that "if the mainstream Sunni resistance wanted journalists dead, we would all have been dead or kidnapped months ago. And the only reason that we're operating is that they want us to operate."
- AFP
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