Designing Democratic Media for Iraq

The Iraqi people suffered under one of the world’s most repressive regimes, which used the media to maintain control over almost every aspect of Iraqi life. In the media free-for-all that has followed the war, they face new problems: the lack of any media law and a shortage of sustainable, credible news sources.

To confront this problem, this past summer Internews spearheaded a process in which a group of some 75 Iraqi, Arab, and Western media experts designed a detailed media framework to ensure freedom of expression and promote independent media in Iraq.

Photo: 2 men stand next to conference sign
Shannon York
   
At the Athens conference, working group member Hamid Ali Alkifaey, left, talks with Abdul Hussein Shaaban, head of the Arab Human Rights Organization.    

“The document lays out practical solutions to very real problems with Iraq’s chaotic media environment,” said George Papagiannis, Director of Internews’ Iraq Media Law Project. “This will provide the architecture for democratic media to flourish in Iraq, while at the same time ensuring that hate media are not tolerated,” he said.

Internews has been working with Iraqi journalists and community leaders to build broad support for the framework’s principles and to assist with implementation.

Key components of the 72-page framework include:

  • laws guaranteeing media freedom, including the abolishment of any kind of censorship;
  • establishment of an independent and credible public broadcasting authority in Iraq;
  • formation of an independent regulatory agency to assign frequencies and license broadcasters;
  • standards for journalistic ethics and Internet policy; and
  • support for a press council and journalist associations that can self-regulate the printed press.

The full document is available on the Internews Europe web site.

The media framework was the culmination of three days of spirited debate by media lawyers, media policy experts and journalists who met in Athens, Greece in June at a conference organized by Internews Network, Internews Europe and the Western Policy Center.

The conference was the first sign of multilateral cooperation on Iraq since the end of the war, with sponsors including the Greek Foreign Ministry, USAID, the European Commission’s Department of Communication, the German Foreign Office, the Russian Ministry of the Press, UNESCO and the World Bank Institute.

NGO sponsors included the Arab Women’s Media Center, Association AÏNA, BBC World Service Trust, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, the Center for Strategic & International Studies, the Indonesia Media Law and Policy Centre, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, the Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research, and the Western Policy Center.

Conference funders included the C.S. Mott Fund, the Foreign Ministry of Greece, the Knight Foundation, USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, and the Western Policy Center.