Iraqi TV anchor killed by car bomb
2012-04-05
BAGHDAD — A "sticky bomb" killed a television presenter working for a local station in Salaheddin province of central Iraq, a provincial spokesman said on Tuesday.
Kamiran Salaheddin, a presenter for Salaheddin Channel, was killed in central Tikrit by a magnetic bomb attached to his car as he drove home from work late on Monday, Salaheddin provincial council spokesman Jamal al-Dulaimi told AFP.
Salaheddin, a 34-year-old father-of-two, was the second journalist killed in Iraq this year, according to the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraq-based media rights group.
Salaheddin Channel was established by American forces in 2004 and is funded by Salaheddin provincial council.
"The Iraqi authorities must do everything possible to ensure that those responsible for his death are brought to justice," Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement condemning the attack.
"His murder must not go unpunished."
Iraq ranked 152nd out of 179 countries in RSF's 2011-2012 World Press Freedom Index, down 22 from the year before.
The report said there was "an increase in murders of journalists" in Iraq, and "journalists are very often the target of violence by the security forces, whether at demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, or in Iraqi Kurdistan, a region that had for many years offered a refuge for journalists."