Assyrian Journalist Receives Death Threats

Who is responsible for the security of journalists and freedom of speech?

How many truths about criminal activity are hidden behind self-censorship? I have kept quiet long enough now. It’s just gone too far. My family is worried and I am considering more and more whether to quit my work as an investigative journalist.

On the 26th of February, Aftonbladet’s debate pages published an article I wrote about the murder of Hrant Dink. I called those persons that incited this killing as murderers.

This triggered a mail attack against me. The majority of the mails were positive. Hundreds of persons, Assyrians (also called Syriacs and Chaldeans), Turks, Kurds, Iranians and other Swedes wrote that that they were glad that someone dared to tell the truth about oppression in Middle Eastern countries. They have followed my reports, for example, the articles I wrote about the ballot rigging in Iraq; about the lives that were lost as a result of the Mohammad cartoons that were published in Jyllands-Posten; about Iran’s spies in Sweden and my most recent exposé about the fake passports that have been issued by Iraq’s embassy.

Unfortunately, among the many mails I received are also those that contain hate and, in certain cases, direct or indirect threats. Islamists have sent me lines from the Koran that Mohammed is the only true prophet and ultra nationalists have sent me distortions of history. I can handle these, it’s their opinion and they have a right to this.

Other mail I received contains such sentences as “You’ll end up the same way as your filthy blood brother Hrant Dink.

Maybe I should throw them into the waste paper basket, not take them seriously and continue as I have done in the past. It’s certainly not the first time I’ve received threatening mail. Police, pedophiles, Nazis, Islamists and criminal financiers have all taken the opportunity to threaten me and I am not alone. Sometimes they do it in disguised words and sometimes openly.

Now, certain of my colleagues, especially ethnic Swedes who don’t have the slightest idea how we whose origins are from abroad, have it, laugh and tell me that I am over-dramatizing.

But it’s just that my world doesn’t look like theirs. It is to a large extent due to my background that I get tips about irregularities more than most of the others. But is it worth it? Shall I, we, expose ourselves to danger to reveal unpleasant truths to the public.

Journalists, researchers, historians and others who want to bring forth the truth are constantly threatened.

“I got up in the middle of the night and searched for a weapon but discovered that I was sleeping at a friend’s home and it was his child that woke up”, said a good friend who is a historian to me on the phone several days ago.

A few nights ago one of my cousins slept at our home. At about four in the morning he heard a car drive up the hill on the street where I live. He got up, took a baseball bat and stood next to the front door. He had read some of the 56 pages of hate and threatening mail that have been sent to me and thought that the man who had sent these, the man who has stalked me for the past three years had come to assault me. It wasn’t anything, just someone who took a wrong turn.

But another time those who had threatened me had driven to the right address. They lit up our kitchen with their headlights as we sat and ate dinner. Right after that I received a sms (textmessage): “Now you know that we know”.

So, how shall we have it? Shall we stop checking suspicious stories? The police can hardly protect us. What’s going to happen?

Perhaps I shouldn’t tell about the threats but then it would be like trying to hide another truth. This I have already done for many years and it is what the majority of my colleagues choose to do.

No, now its time to discuss self-censorship. Freedom of speech will soon become a thing of the past, a non-reality. Only too many of my colleagues no longer dare to do their job and check the stories that are offered to them by their sources.

I am sad, angry and frightened. Not for my own sake, but for my family and my friends. Two of my friends, a journalist who had been active in the Middle East and a researcher, Sabri Atman, live in secrecy and cannot enjoy a normal life. Every time I meet them I have to look over my shoulder.

Who shall take responsibility to set a stop for the threats against journalists and thereby, democracy? The parliament? The embassies in Sweden? The police? The Journalist Club? The Journalist Union? The Swedish Secret Service (Säpo)?

Or, perhaps the question should be phrased differently: Who will take any responsibility at all?

By Nuri Kino
EasternStar News Agency