“Freedom” Marching
September 28, 2006
But the Iraqi government isn’t interested in freedom of speech. They actually prefer Saddam’s take on freedom of speech… literally, they pulled language verbatim from his penal code criminalizing public insults against government officials. “Roughly a dozen” have been charged and those found guilty are eligible for a seven year prison term.
Iraq also resurrected the death penalty a while back but you didn’t seem to notice.
Why would I?
because you’d care?
vinman: you don’t seem to care that people will be tortured at U.S. hands. Why would you care about the death penalty in Iraq?
I personally oppose the death penalty but do not consider its abolishment necessary in establishing a healthy democratic and free society. The absence of a free press on the other hand is tyranny in the making.
I don’t.
really now, , ,further down–
“Now, Iraqi journalists still operate with considerable freedoms, at least compared with those in Saudi Arabia and other neighboring countries, and many Iraqis have achieved a new level of professionalism by working closely with Western journalists. So despite the growing government pressure, the news media have become increasingly aggressive.”
I didn’t see it posted yet on brookings.edu, but here is the Sept report: Page 27 has a ranking of “Index of Political Freedom” for the middle east.
“Now, Iraqi journalists still operate with considerable freedoms, at least compared with those in Saudi Arabia and other neighboring countries, and many Iraqis have achieved a new level of professionalism by working closely with Western journalists. So despite the growing government pressure, the news media have become increasingly aggressive.”
That’s great but does this change the fact that it is ILLEGAL TO CRITICIZE THE GOVERNMENT? That is the issue I brought up after all.
The “Index of Political Freedom” was originally published by the BBC in November 2005. The laws prohibiting criticism of government officials are “new” according to the NYT article. So my guess is that the survey referenced in the brookings report does not take this into consideration. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4450582.stm
re: survey-maybe so. .
Free press on the road to tyranny - probably not. Iraq will set its own standard for free political speech. That it has difficulty normalizing its response to anti-government speech is troubling, but the country is under attack from many angles. I would like to see some more opinions from iraqi journalists; according to the article they fear the hydra of sectarian violence more than their government.