Shihab al-Timimi, 74, chief of the Iraqi Journalists' Union, died Feb. 27 of wounds suffered in an ambush outside the union headquarters in the Waziriya district of Baghdad five days earlier. His deputy at the journalists' union, Mouayed al-Lami, said, "We have lost a pious, irreplaceable and honest man... This shows that Iraqi journalists are still living under constant danger." Al-Timimi's son was also wounded in the attack.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists quoted al-Timimi's nephew as saying the union chief had received multiple threats, including calls on his cell phone and home telephone about six months ago warning he would be killed if he did not step down from his position.
Excluding this latest death, CPJ has recorded at least 126 journalists and 50 media support workers killed since the invasion in March 2003. (AP [2], Feb. 28)
See our last posts on Iraq [3], the civil opposition [4] and attacks on the press [5].
