(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) International press freedom organisation, Reporters Without Borders (RWB), has called on the UNSC to refer abuses of journalists in Syria and Iraq to the International Criminal Court (ICC) where they want the killings classified as war crimes, a statement said on Tuesday.
RWB said that it had written to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and to the incoming Lithuanian UNSC president to make the request that the ICC be called upon to examine the murder and abuse of pressmen in Syria and Iraq.
"Two US journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, were the victims of carefully-staged beheadings by Islamic State (ISIL) in August and September that were filmed and posted online," the statement said.
"An Iraqi journalist, Raad Mohamed Al-Azaoui, was also publicly executed by the same radical Islamists in October 2014 after being kidnapped in Samara," it added.
RWB also said that other groups or parties were deliberately targeting journalists in Syria and Iraq, especially those working for official press organs.
"Syrian government forces have also been responsible for many abuses against journalists," Reporters Without Borders noted.
The press organisation said it was basing its demand on UNSC resolution 1738 which was adopted in 2006 and set out terms for the safety of journalists. This resolution was bolstered by two UN General Assembly resolutions adopted in 2013 and 2014, aiming to end impunity for crimes against journalists.
"To shed light on the terrible acts being committed against journalists in these war zones and to deter the belligerents from continuing to commit them, we believe the Security Council should urgently refer the situation in Syria and Iraq, and in particular the war crimes against journalists, to the ICC's prosecutor," RWB Secretary-General Christophe Deloire wrote in his letter to the UNSC.
He further called for the UN Security Council to initiate "a concrete process designed to bring the perpetrators of crimes against journalists to justice." (end)
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