PM Maliki addresses General Federation of Arab Journalists conference

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Iraq‘s Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has demanded Arab governments and organizations on Saturday to “open the chance for the Iraqi media to play its role to carry out the facts to the whole world.” “Iraq has opened its heart and stretched its hand, for the Arab media to act from Iraq, in order to practice its full media freedom, even without a license from the Iraqi government, to broadcast the facts for the whole world.Now, we demand the Arab governments and  organizations to open the chances and freedoms for the Iraqi media to play its role in expressing the facts,” Maliki said in a speech at the opening of the Conference of the General Federation of Arab Journalists in Baghdad. “The mass media is a responsibility.A journalist is responsible, just as a politician or security man is responsible, for the construction of the Homeland and to broadcast the facts, that are not  undermined by politicization and different parties,” Maliki said. The Iraqi Prime Minister, addressing the Arab delegations to the conference, said, “I hope that your message will reach the world, namely that Iraq had been cured and Baghdad had began to receive international conferences and organizations, without any pressures or threats for the security and political conditions.” “I hope that your message will reach your governments and organizations, covering what you see in Baghdad about the security conditions and the freedom of press,” Maliki said. “We have suffered from the war and the sanctions; and the facts that were killed and buried in Iraq.Your great conference has restored the spirit for Iraq and the truth to its place.We hope that this conference will be a stepping stone to eliminating politicized and centralized media, heading for a free media,” Maliki said. Maliki also highlighted Iraqi journalists in his speech, saying that “they have proved courageous in confronting challenges and violations, practiced against them, keeping far away from animosity, extremism, sectarianism and isolation; as the free press is gradually heading to express the opinion and the other opinion, in order to build a complete rising up project.” The Conference of the General Federation of Arab Journalists was opened by the Chairman of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, Mo’ayad al-Lamy in Baghdad early on Saturday, attended by 20 Arab States, represented by the Leaders of the Journalists Unions and Syndicates in their countries. SKH (TI)/SR 690