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Commission calls for the cancellation of international law and calls journalists nightmare
On: Sat 28/01/2012 10:36
Baghdad / term
called for an international organization defending the rights of journalists worldwide abolition of the "law to protect journalists" who prescribed the House of Representatives in August of last year at the request of the government, despite objections wide it from the media in the country.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, based in New York in a statement The law which came into force last November does not rise to the level of international standards on freedom of expression and should be eliminated immediately.
The organization's statement that the Iraqi government after it faced pressure in recent years to make reforms in the media sector, the law "does not provide any serious protection for journalists and impose restrictions on determining who qualify as a journalist and how access to information and the nature of disposal".
The statement filed by the Association for Defense of Press Freedom in Iraq before the Federal Supreme Court against the law since some of its provisions conflict with the provisions of the Constitution.
She drew the Committee to Protect Journalists International that "the laws of the former Iraqi continued to apply to journalists in addition to the new law, including law Code of 1969, which criminalizes defamation, and Publications Law of 1968 which allows the imprisonment of journalists for up to seven years if convicted on charges of insulting the government. "
said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, program coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa of the Committee to Protect Journalists, "it is clear that the law on the protection of journalists fails to provide protection for journalists. What did the government (of Iraq) is the accumulation of bad law drafting over the two laws older restricting press freedoms. The result is the nightmare of a legal, told reporters. "
The statement quoted Uday Hatem president of the defense of freedom of the press in Iraq as saying that the problem fundamental law that can be used by authorities as a tool to impose restrictions on media freedoms, and explained, "if she wants the Iraqi authorities give journalists their rights, it shall amend the existing laws and not retained from the era of Saddam Hussein and add new laws do not provide any additional advantage."
The Committee felt International law punctuated by numerous vaguely worded provisions, which depends a narrow definition of the journalist as a person working full-time, which excludes from the definition of journalists who work part-time bloggers and other individuals are busy publishing news. As well as the law did not provide any compensation to reporters in the case of death or injury at work, and devoid of any other services, as law lacks any effective because it does not know clearly who they are covered by the law. The law states that the resulting groups concerned with information that you get to register "under the law," but does not specify under any law, and states that the journalists have "the right of access to information and news, data and statistics ... within the law", without any determines what the law refers to it. And create these mysterious aspects of unnecessary barriers to access to information. The Committee noted in its statement that, although the law came into effect several months ago, but it did not provide a little protection for journalists. The group of journalists had led the campaign against the signing of the law before its adoption.
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