Committee to Protect Journalists
CPJ promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.
CPJ promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.
Government threatened Foley family before son’s execution
After a series of recent interviews, members of the Foley family have said the government threatened to prosecute their family if they had raised and paid the money for the ransom sought for the life of their son, James Foley.
According to ABC News, Diane Foley, the mother of James, said they were threatened with lawsuits multiple times if they had gone through with paying the ransom. “We were told that several times and we took it as a threat and it was appalling.”
Diane then said a highly decorated military officer, who serves on the National Security Council, came to their house to warn them about the pending prosecutions.
“Three times he intimidated us with that message,” said Diane. “We were horrified he would say that. He just told us we would be prosecuted. We knew we had to save our son, we had to try.”
An Iranian Kurdish female member of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) sits with her weapon in Dibis, some 50 kms northwest of Kirkuk, on September 15, 2014. The world’s top diplomats pledged today to support Iraq in its fight against Islamic State militants by ‘any means necessary’, including ‘appropriate military assistance’, as leaders stressed the urgency of the crisis. Photo by Safin HamedAFP/Getty Images
Amnesty International Accuses Islamic State of War Crimes, ‘Ethnic Cleansing’The actions of the terrorist group known as the Islamic State, which include the mass killings and abductions of religious minorities in Iraq, amount to war crimes of historical proportions, according to a new report by the human rights group Amnesty International.
Amnesty points to newly uncovered “gruesome” evidence that proves that the militants (formerly known as ISIS or ISIL) is conducting an unprecedented and systematic “ethnic cleansing” campaign in Iraq
“The massacres and abductions being carried out by the Islamic State provide harrowing new evidence that a wave of ethnic cleansing against minorities is sweeping across northern Iraq,” said Amnesty investigator Donatella Rovera, who wrote the new 26-page report published on Tuesday. Read more…
Isis now controls a swath of land slightly larger than the UK, from Aleppo to central Iraq, and holds sway over a population of at least four million people. The group’s rapid ability to organise and consolidate continues to splinter a fractured body politic in Iraq and Syria and is fast causing ramifications for the broader Middle East.
“The Islamic State is now the most capable military power in the Middle East outside Israel,” a senior regional diplomat said on Friday. “They can determine outcomes in a few days that the Syrian rebels took two years to influence. Their capacity is in sharp contrast to the Syrian regime, which is only able to fight one battle at a time and has to fight hard for every success.
"In the first two months of its life, the so-called Caliphate has achieved unparalleled success. It is in the process of creating foundations for substantial financial, military and political growth. It is the best equipped and most capable terror group in the world. It is unlike anything we have ever seen.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/22/isis-syria-airbase-tabqa
Syria has been the most dangerous country in the world for journalists for more than two years. In addition to Foley, at least 69 other journalists have been killedcovering the conflict there, including some who died over the border in Lebanon and Turkey. More than 75 percent of the deaths came in crossfire or combat situations, but journalists have also been directly targeted by all sides of the conflict. More than 80 journalists have been abducted in Syria, an unprecedented number since CPJ’s founding in 1981. CPJ estimates that approximately 20 journalists, the majority of whom are Syrians, are currently missing in the country.
Given the restricted and dangerous reporting conditions in areas controlled by Islamic State and the number of cases that go unpublicized, usually at the request of family, it is difficult to provide an exact number of journalists killed or held captive by the group. But through Islamic State’s repeated targeting of journalists, the group has proven to be one of the most dangerous forces for the press across the region.
(Image credit: freejamesfoley.org )
A video released Tuesday showed a militant from the Islamic State beheading American journalist James Foley (note: we have not linked to the video above, simply a report about the video). Foley was kidnapped in Syria on Thanksgiving Day in…
The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder of James Foley, a U.S. freelance journalist, who was abducted in Syria in November 2012. In a video posted online, the Al-Qaeda splinter group Islamic State claimed to have executed Foley, saying the act was retribution for U.S. military intervention in Iraq.
“The barbaric murder of journalist James Foley, kidnapped in Syria and held almost two years, sickens all decent people. Foley went to Syria to show the plight of the Syrian people, to bear witness to their fight, and in so doing to fight for press freedom,” said CPJ Chairman Sandra Mims Rowe. “Our hearts go out to his family, who had dedicated themselves to finding and freeing Jim.”
Syria has been the most dangerous country in the world for journalists for more than two years. At least 69 other journalists have been killed covering the conflict there, including some who died over the border in Lebanon and Turkey. More than 80 journalists have been kidnapped in Syria; with frequent abductions, some of which go unpublicized, it is difficult to know exactly how many. CPJ estimates that approximately 20 journalists, both local and international, are currently missing in Syria. Many of them are believed to be held by Islamic State.
A Kurdish journalist was killed in Makhmur district, south of the city of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, on Friday when shrapnel from mortar shelling hit her in the chest, according to news reports. Deniz Firat, a freelance reporter, was covering clashes between Kurdish forces and insurgents with the Islamic State, an Al-Qaeda splinter group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham, the Firat News Agency said.
