THE RORY PECK AWARDS 2004
Sponsored by Sony

The Freelance World

An Iraqi in Iraq

Working as a cameraman in Iraq has never been riskier. Who will target you? Will it be random fire from American troops or bullets from the insurgents who are fighting them everywhere? Many people are losing their lives.

My television story started as an assistant cameraman in 1973 for Iraqi TV. I first worked in the Iraqi movie industry - later transferring to news and political programmes.

When the Iraq-Iran war raged in 1980 I was working for a very well-known show called Pictures from Battles. Near the end of the war the Iraqi army lost many key battles. Our forces withdrew from a town called Mohamra after a fierce Iranian assault and we were left behind enemy lines. We were forced to leave all our equipment and cameras. Then we swam the Karoon River!

I carried the film on my head to stop the water spoiling it.

There were many painful and sad memories from that bloody and awful war, but in the end it became a war at the borders of the Country, so the families in Iraq weren’t suffering directly from it.

Now with this new war it is entirely different. Each home in Iraq has been affected directly or indirectly. In my work as a cameraman you see all these sad events with your own eyes and my own sadness accumulates day after day.

A few weeks ago when I was covering the firefights in Falluja, I was surrounded by American army soldiers in a small house. They thought I was an insurgency member so American snipers were ordered to fire against me. It was 24 hours before I convinced them I was part of a media team. The very next day the local cameraman who was working with ABC was killed and we were forced to leave the city.

All camera teams have been trying to convince both sides that we are neutral and just attempting to transmit the truth. It was a sad night when I lost my colleagues and friends: reporter Ali Khateeb and cameraman Ali Abul Aziz. They were working with Al Arabyia. I was close to them when we were covering a blast in a hotel in Baghdad. American forces fired randomly in the middle of the street. These are the dangers for whoever carries a camera in Baghdad.

Isam Raef Abdul Rahman
Freelance cameraman

The Rory Peck Awards Brochure 2004

• Programme
• Why Freelancers Matter
• A Year of Growth...
• ...and Freelance Achievement
• From Sony
• The Overseas Project
• Reporting Iraq
• The Freelance World
  An Iraqi in Iraq
  An American in Iraq
  In Pakistan
  In Haiti
  In Zimbabwe
• Report on Safety Training Course
• Trauma can get stuck in the system
• For Roddy - and Helping Others

The Rory Peck Awards

• Winners
• Finalists

  
  

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