Iraqi journalists invited to Brussels to introduce their online news service

Aswat al-Iraq is the first and unique independent news services agency in Iraq run and staff with Iraqi journalists. It was created in 2004 with the support from Reuters Foundation, UNDP and the Spanish International Cooperation Organisation to allow Iraqi journalists to share news stories around the 2005 elections. Using inexpensive new technology, and a web-based platform www.aswataliraq.info for gathering and distributing news and stories, Aswat al-Iraq quickly caught the attention of Iraqi media organisations from accros Iraq’s communities and gained a their committment and support. Aswat al-Iraq currently provides around 1700 stories a month in Arabic, more than 140 in English and 110 in Kurdish.

Internews Europe, together with Reuters Foundation and IFIAS have designed a one week visit in Brussels (11-15 September 2006) for 4 journalists from Aswat al-Iraq. The objective was to familiarize Aswat al-Iraq‘s core team with European and international insititutions and to raise Aswat al-Iraq’s profile in Europe and give them the opportunity to receive more political and financial support to continue operating. During one week, the ’journalists met with various officers at the European Parliament, the European Commisison, the OTAN, the Beligum Foreign Affairs Ministry who funded their visit in Belgium and various media. They had a chance to report on the extraordinary conditions in which they work, on the media situation in Iraq (more than 200 newspapers and 25 TV stations operate since the liberalization of the country) and transmit a message of hope for the rehabilitation of the media and global landscape in their country.

More in the interview published by LE SOIR on 18th September 2006 and in the video available soon on this page.