During his coverage to the hand over of the security file in Hashimiyat district, south of Babylon province, reporter of Beladi satellite channel Ahmed Emad was held and abused by the Iraqi military forces.

Ahmed told the journalistic freedoms observatory (JFO) that "the soldiers pulled him to the military vehicles after ordering him in a humiliating way to kneel down to the ground. He tried to get any explanation about the reason of abusing him while covering their activities, but in vain.

He adds that "the soldiers kept him standing under the heat of the sun and prevented him from sitting down; they refused giving him a glass of water to drink and threatened him not to open his mouth".

JFO decries the irresponsible behavior of some of the Iraqi military soldiers against Ahmed Emad and asks the defense ministry to punish those who held him. We, hereby, remind the minister of the instructions of the Iraqi premier Noori al-Maliki which he issued in last April in which he stressed "to take severe measures against those who abuse or violate the rights of journalists and media men".

The JFO presumes that the defense ministry does not seriously apply those instructions; it has not yet investigated the aggression against the journalists that took place in the headquarters of the ministry earlier last month during their coverage to a press conference.