a war for freedom?

In February, as elsewhere in the Arab World, in places like Baghdad, Fallujah, Mosul and Tikrit, protesters took to the streets, intent on reform - focused on ending corruption and the chronic shortages of food, water, electricity and jobs - but not toppling the government of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The response by government security forces, who have arrested, beaten, and shot protesters, leaving hundreds dead or wounded, however, was similar to that of other autocratic rulers around the region. Attacks by Iraqi forces on freedom of the press, in the form of harassment, detention, and assaults on individual journalists, raids of radio stations, the offices of newspapers and press freedom groups have also shown the dark side of Maliki's regime. Many journalists have been prevented from covering protests or have curtailed their reporting in response to brutality, raising the spectre of a return to the days of Saddam Hussein's regime when press freedom was a fiction.

The US, however, have turned a blind eye to the violence and repression, with the top spokesman for the US military in Iraq praising the same Iraqi units which eyewitnesses have identified as key players in the crackdown while ignoring the outrages attributed to them.

Samer Muscati, a researcher for Human Rights Watch's Middle East division who just completed a fact-finding mission in Iraq, echoed this, noting that - while more journalists were killed in attacks during the height of Iraq's insurgency - the strengthening of the Iraqi government has led to different hazards for reporters. "They're at more risk, now, of being harassed or interrogated or targeted by security forces or their proxies," he said. Reports suggest that Maliki is now intent on dismantling much of what remains of the free press in Iraq.

20 armed men, clad in distinctive uniforms topped by red berets or helmets bearing a skull and cross-bones, burst into the Baghdad offices of the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi press freedom group. On what was billed as a "Day of Rage", Iraqi security forces detained 300 leading journalists, lawyers, artists and intellectuals who took part in or covered the protests over domestic issues and government accountability. Four journalists who were picked up long after leaving the protests in Baghdad's Tahrir Square told the Washington Post that troops operating out of the headquarters of an army intelligence unit had beaten them and threatened them with execution. Reporters also had their cameras and memory cards confiscated, Muscati told me. Other assaults on press freedom, including attacks on radio and television stations and the roughing up of reporters, took place all across the country. Sherry Ricchiardi, an expert on the press in the Middle East sees the recent repression in stark terms. "It is part of the orchestrated crackdown on media. The Iraqi government and security forces appear to be getting bolder in attacks on media."

Like other countries across the region, social media has played a major role in activist organising in Iraq. The Washington Post noted that the same progressive young Iraqis who organised the "Day of Rage" that brought tens of thousands, from all across the country, into the streets saw their Facebook group leap from 700 followers to 4,000 in a country with extremely limited internet access (another group they started had, by mid-March, 10,000 members). Since then, Facebook has played a widening role in the protest movement.
"We, right now, are dealing with the ministry of defence to help them understand how to employ Facebook," said Major General Jeffrey Buchanan, the chief spokesman for the United States Forces-Iraq.

Human Rights Watch's Muscati explained that protest organisers in Baghdad said that they've seen on-line countermeasures employed against their organising efforts on Facebook.