Iraqi reporters' dilemma - risk death or leave

BAGHDAD, June 23 (Reuters) With their colleagues dying in record numbers, Iraqi journalists face an unenviable choice -- stay and risk becoming another statistic of unrelenting violence or leave and endure economic hardship and isolation abroad.

Iraq is the most dangerous place in the world in which to report, with Iraqis working for local media or major Western outlets bearing the brunt of militant attacks and death threats.

Iraqi newspaper reporter Nasser Mohammed said things had become so bad he knew he had to make a decision.

Would he put his job first, keep reporting the news and risk his life, or would he put personal safety first at the expense of his professional obligation to report the news? ''We have an assignment, a duty we have to do, that is to tell the world what is going on in Iraq,'' Mohammed told Reuters.

He then made a grim revelation.

''I've put my death certificate in my pocket. I don't know when it will be signed,'' he said.

''I have to do one of two things -- stay in my office and don't leave it like a prison, or leave Iraq and go abroad. I doubt I'll find a job abroad.'' Some who decide to get out leave behind family members who then face hardship in a war-ravaged economy, many of them having to rely on other family members for support.

THREATS Independent media advocacy group, the Committee to Protect Journalists, says at least 108 journalists and 39 media support workers have been killed in Iraq since 2003, four out of five of them Iraqis.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders puts the total number at 184, with at least 11 Iraqi journalists killed in May, the media's worst month in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.

An unknown number of Iraqi journalists have quit their jobs or left Iraq after receiving threats from al Qaeda-led groups or militias as Iraq teeters on the brink of sectarian civil war between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.

E-mails have been sent to Iraqi reporters from different groups, mostly accusing them of being traitors for siding with American ''occupiers'' or threatening them with death or kidnapping for being on the wrong side of the sectarian divide.

Some work for state-run organisations or for independent agencies like Aswat al-Iraq, which had three reporters killed in two weeks from May 30. Others work for more partisan outlets which have flourished after the fall of Saddam.

Some journalists who have left Iraq say they have even received threats while working or studying abroad. Others who stay say they do not tell their family, friends or neighbours what they do to try to protect them from retribution.

Threats against journalists succeed in muzzling the media in other ways because the desire to protect themselves and loved ones can lead to self-censorship or stories left uncovered.

''There are many great stories but because I am trying to hide I lose the stories ... just because I don't want the people to know I am working as a journalist,'' said a female reporter in Baghdad, who asked not to be named.

Mohammed said in the past he might have covered two or three media conferences in a day but now spends his whole work day in his office. When he leaves work he changes his route every day so that he does not become an easy, predictable target.

Things have become so bad that he knows of 20 journalists who are planning to leave Iraq next month.

''I may be one of them,'' he said.

REUTERS SKB BD0843