UNESCO deplores killing of another journalist in Iraq

Just one day after reiterating his call to all sides in Iraq to give greater priority to improving the safety of journalists, the head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today condemned the killing of yet one more reporter in the war-torn country, the third in four days.

Firas Maadidi, Mosul bureau chief of the Iraqi As-Saffir newspaper, was gunned down outside his home on Tuesday, bringing the death toll for journalists killed in Iraq to 56 since March 2003, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

"These killings are clearly part of a brutal campaign against Iraq's young democracy," UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said in a statement, the latest of many on the carnage in Iraq by his agency, whose mandate includes the defence of freedom of expression and press freedom.

"But the country's journalists have shown incredible determination to carry out their essential work for the construction of democracy and rule of law. Iraq has suffered from the absence of both for all too long and I call on all to support the journalists of Iraq in their struggle for truth and transparency," he added.

Mr. Matsuura has frequently condemned the murder of journalists around the world as an attack on one of the fundamental pillars of democracy.