Update 1:40 pm:A photographer for a Baghdad newspaper says Iraqi police beat and detained him for snapping pictures of long lines at gas stations. A reporter for another local paper received an invitation from Iraqi police to cover their graduation ceremony and ended up receiving death threats from the recruits. A local TV reporter says she's lost count of how many times Iraqi authorities have confiscated her cameras and smashed her tapes.[...]
While Iraq's newly elected government says it will look into complaints of press intimidation, local reporters said they've seen little progress since reporting the incidents. Some have quit their jobs after receiving threats - not from insurgents, but from police. Most Iraqi reporters are reluctant to even identify themselves as press when stopped at police checkpoints. Others say they won't report on events that involve Iraqi security forces, which creates a big gap in their local news coverage.
"Tell me to cover anything except the police," said Muth'hir al Zuhairy, the reporter from Sabah newspaper who was threatened at a police academy.
Iraqi press freedom is being extensively curtailed, according to Knight Ridder.' . . . a weekly newspaper was shut down in October for criticizing the governor of the Wasit province. A judge related to the governor sentenced two editors to several months in prison, Sarraj said. The court papers accused the men of "cursing and insulting" the politician.'
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