Al-Halboosi: “We will work to provide a suitable environment for the work of journalists and their legitimate right to access information”

 

The Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halboosi congratulated, on Saturday, the press family in Iraq on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, praising the journalists who sacrificed their lives while performing their professional duties.

In a statement, the Speaker said that the celebration of World Press Freedom Day each year is a reminder of the basic principles and aims to evaluate freedom of the press around the world and defend it against the attacks that threaten its independence, praising the journalists who gave their lives while doing their professional duty.

He added that the Iraqi Council of Representatives seeks every effort to legislate laws that contribute to the achievement of free and independent Iraqi press, and one of these laws is the law of the rights of journalists No. 21 of 2011.

“We will work to provide the appropriate atmosphere for the work of journalists and their legitimate right to access information without restrictions that limit or restrict the freedom of publication,” he said. “We also try to ensure the rights of journalists without censorship, and this occasion makes us and you through your Syndicate to activate the Law of Journalists Rights and push the Governmental organizations to implement it,” he added.

H.E. stressed on this occasion on the freedom of the press and access to information as a human right, saying: “I pledge you as President of the legislative authority in Iraq, that none will ​​touch the freedom of the press and no restrictions will be on them”.

“Write what you wish, and help the parliament and the government. What you dictate as ideas and chase as files of corruption and condemned phenomena, will help the state and its institutions, and may lead to the introduction of draft laws” he explained.

The Speaker concluded by recording the highest honours for the martyrs of the Iraqi press who have devoted themselves to the profession of trouble and death, wishing the continuous freedom of press in Iraq of liberation, democracy and progress.

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Media Office
Of the Parliament Speaker
May 4, 2019