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Brussels, 25 November - The United States and Britain have a pressing duty to reassure journalists fearful of their safety in war following reports that President Bush had suggested bombing the headquarters of Al Jazeera. The Arabic satellite channel has attracted the ire of the US administration for its reporting of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and for broadcasting video from the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. The British newspaper the Daily Mirror, citing a leaked classified document, reported that Bush had raised the idea of bombing Al Jazeera's offices in Doha with British Prime Minister Blair at a meeting in April 2004. Blair was said to have advised against it. "Iraq already is the most dangerous conflict for journalists in modern times with almost 100 news media staff dead in 2-1/2 years -- 13 of them in incidents involving US troops," said INSI Director Rodney Pinder. "Journalists are murdered by the dozen around the world every year because their reporting upsets ruthless regimes or criminal elements. They exposed themselves to danger to keep the world informed. "We cannot have them now looking to their backs in case of attack by democracies which, after all, rest on the pillar of free speech. No one can guard and project democracy by killing journalists," he said. The Mirror's sources disagreed on the nature of Bush's reported remark. One government source dismissed it as "humorous, not serious" while another said the president was "deadly serious". White House spokesman Scott McClellan told the Associated Press the White House was "not interested in dignifying something so outlandish and inconceivable with a response." Journalists' fears that the report may not be so inconceivable are fuelled by previous incidents: a US missile attack on Al Jazeera's Baghdad bureau in April 2003, which killed reporter Tareq Ayyoub, and the US bombing of Al Jazeera's bureau in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2001. And in April 1999, during the war to force President Milosevic to withdraw its forces from Kosovo, NATO planes attacked the government-run studios of Radio Television Serbia in Belgrade, killing 16 staff. The raid was excused on grounds the station was part of the Belgrade government's propaganda machine. The British government has tried to prevent full disclosure of the memo. A civil servant associated with the case is being prosecuted under the UK's Official Secrets Act. Pinder said the safety fears of journalists covering conflict were real and substantial and supported by a record of unjustified and unexplained attacks on news media staff in Iraq and elsewhere. They merited a serious and substantive response by the British and US governments. "This matter is far too grave for the present and future safety of conflict reporters to be dismissed out of hand or subjected to an official cover-up," Pinder said. "We need a full and frank explanation." |