The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today condemned the killing of reporter Luma Mohammad Reyad, who is the latest victim of a targeted attack against media workers in Iraq.

At least one hundred and sixty-one media workers have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war, sixty have been killed this year, nine have been killed in the last month and four have been killed this week.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” said IFJ General Secretary Aidan White. “Iraqi journalism is being systematically destroyed. Each death is a tragedy in itself but each is also part of the larger tragedy of unchecked violence and lack of free expression.”

Reyad worked for the US-funded Al Dustoor newspaper. The paper’s editor-in-chief, Bassem Al Shiekh, lives in Amman.

Reyad was killed in Ba'kouba in the Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, the Iraqi Journalists’ Syndicate (IJS) said.

The IJS condemned Reyad’s murder and called for greater protections for Iraqi journalists.

On Wednesday gunmen in a car shot and killed Fadia Mohammed Abid, a journalist for local daily independent newspaper Al-Masar, and her driver in the Tahrir neighbourhood of east Mosul as they were on the way to the office, according to press reports. On Monday, Mohammed al-Ban, an employee of Sharqiya, a Sunni-owned satellite channel which is the main competitor of state-run Iraqiya television, was killied outside his Mosul home.

For more information contact the IFJ at 32 2 235 2207
The IFJ represents over 500,000 journalists in more than 100 countries worldwide