FILE PHOTO: Ahmad Abdelsamad correspondent for local television station Dijla, and his cameraman Safaa Ghali.
Mon 13 January 2020:
Basra, Iraq – Dozens of journalists in Iraq’s southern city of Basra have launched a campaign to highlight the dangers they face following the murder of two reporters amid continuing anti-government protests.
Ahmad Abdelsamad, a 39-year-old correspondent for local television station Dijla, and his cameraman Safaa Ghali, 37, were killed near a police station late on Friday in Basra. A group of armed men in a 4×4 vehicle approached their car and opened fire, according to witnesses.
Shihab Ahmed, a Basra-based journalist, told Al Jazeera there was a growing sense of fear among journalists in the city and across Iraq, where at least five journalists have been killed since protests began in October.
“We started a social media campaign to encourage all journalists to boycott security officials and government representatives until a thorough investigation into the killings is complete,” said Ahmed, referring to a campaign called “I Am Next”.
“This [killing of the two reporters] wasn’t a one-off incident. Journalists have been and will continue to be targeted to silence them,” Ahmed told Al Jazeera.
Amid calls to join the campaign, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior invited journalists to a conference in Basra on Sunday to discuss the city’s security situation and the killings.
But journalists refused to attend, forcing the authorities to cancel the event.
Like Ahmed, 25-year-old Maher Kareem told Al Jazeera he boycotted the event because the identity of Abdelsamad and Ghali’s killers had not been revealed.
“All of Basra’s journalists refused to attend the conference and we will continue to boycott [the authorities] until we know who killed them [Abdelsamad and Ghali],” Kareem told Al Jazeera.
“I fear for my life. Today it was Safaa and Ahmed. Tomorrow it might be me,” he added.
Mourners blame armed groups
Following the killings, hundreds of mourners marched through Basra on Saturday, carrying symbolic coffins and calling on the authorities to investigate the incident.
Many of them told Al Jazeera they believed that Abdelsamad and Ghali, who had spent long hours reporting on the protest movement in Basra, were killed because they had called out armed groups attacking the demonstrators.
“Ahmed and Safaa were among the few with no agenda when reporting on the demonstrations,” a protester at the funeral processions told Al Jazeera. “The armed groups that wanted to silence them are behind this.”
“I was shocked once I received the news of their assassination. I think the video Ahmed posted a few days before he was killed was behind his death,” he added, referring to a video in which Abdelsamad criticised the role of armed groups in Basra.
In another widely-circulated video which Abdelsamad posted minutes before his death, the reporter implied that Iran-backed armed groups in Basra were behind the campaign of arbitrary arrests against activists and protesters.
“How come there were no arrests when they protested against America?” Abdelsamad asked in the video, referring to crowds of mostly Iran-backed Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces or PMF) supporters and members who stormed the US embassy in Baghdad last month.
According to a statement by the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, Abdessamad had sent in a video testimony about “threats he received from militias because of his criticism of Iran in his coverage” two weeks before his death.
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