By Xinhua,
Baghdad : Three Iraqi television crew were wounded in a drive-by shooting in eastern Baghdad, a local mediawatchdog reported on Tuesday.
A crew working for the Iraqi Beladi TV came under fire by unknown gunmen in Baghdad’s eastern neighborhood of Zaiyouna, wounding Hassan al-Rikabi, correspondent of the channel, Hameed Hashim, a cameraman and their driver Azmi Habib, the Journalistic Freedom Observatory (JFO) said in a statement. The incident took place on Monday afternoon. The watchdog, which monitors violence against the media in Iraqsaid that Hashim was in critical condition after he received several gunshots in the stomach and mouth, the statement said, quoting medical sources in the al-Kindi Hospital where the victims have been transported.
The Beladi TV is owned by the Shiite Nuri al-Maliki’s DawaParty.
The Iraqi Journalists’ Union said earlier that more than 250Iraqi journalists have been killed in the country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
The Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF)said that the war in Iraq has proved to be the deadliest for journalists since World War II.
“No country has ever seen more journalists killed than Iraq,” the international watchdog said.