Another Journalist Dies

Ali Shafeya Al-Moussawi. You’ve never heard me mention that name before. I’ve never written the name before. Yet Ali was a colleague of mine. He was someone who participated as a correspondent for one of the greatest independent news reporting projects today: Alive in Baghdad.

Like everyone who works for AiB, he reported from Iraq about the reality of people’s lives there and what they were living through under a foreign occupation, being subject to all sorts of terrible acts by their own government, the US military, or the various other types of criminals one finds in Iraq. As an independent project, they receive no funds and do what they do at great personal risk as every jounalist knows full well that if they try to expose injustice and report about war crimes that they will often be targeted by the military.

Ali was killed yesterday. Reports say it was 31 bullets from the Iraqi national guard. The national guard that was trained by the US military. The national guard that is supposed to be for the good of the people, to protect freedom or whatever nationalist slogan they’ve adopted lately.

Ali’s murder is a tragedy to add on to this neverending list of tragedies. Perpetrated while the whole world COULD be watching, but lets be honest, most of the world isn’t watching, they’re probably Christmas shopping.

This post is to offer my heartfelt condolesces to a colleague that probably did not know I existed or how much his work meant to me. This post is also to renew my pledge as an independent internet based journalist and podcaster; I will not forget the importance of his work… and if I may be so bold as to compare… of our work… I will remember Ali.