Journalist thrown out of coalition centre in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The editor of Iraq (news - web sites) Today, a leading English-language daily, said the US military had handcuffed him, thrown him to the ground and banned him from one of its main Baghdad headquarters.

Hussein Fattah Pasha, said he had gone to attend a press conference at the Baghdad convention centre on Monday and had arrived shortly after 5:00 pm (1300 GMT), 30 minutes before it started.

But a US military officer told him he had missed the deadline to attend the conference of Iraq's new Governing Council and had to leave. Journalists are usually told to arrive one hour beforehand.

But the US officer did not impose the one-hour deadline on other journalists who arrived after Pasha and were allowed attend the conference, Pasha said.

more