Ahmad Shawkat (Arabic: أحمد شوكت) was an Iraqi journalist shot to death outside his media office in Mosul, on 28 October 2003, following a series of death threats.[1][2]
Ahmad Shawkat | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1951 |
| Died | 2003 (aged 51–52) |
| Nationality | Iraqi |
| Other names | Arabic: أحمد شوكت |
| Occupation(s) | Professor of medicine, translator, journalist |
| Known for | assassinated by Iraqi resistance members |
Shawkat was regarded as an opponent by the Saddam Hussein regime, and had been sent to prison, and tortured, four times.[1][3] He had spent the seven years prior to the USinvasion in Irbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, in internal exile.
Prior to his short career in journalism, he had served as an anatomy professor at Mosul University,[4] and a Kurdish translator.[5]
Shortly after the USA occupied Iraq, in 2003, WBUR, a PBS station in Boston, broadcast a documentary about Shawkat.[6] After the occupation Shawkat worked as a translator for Michael Goldfarb, an American journalist. Goldfarb only worked with Shawkat briefly, butwould describe them as close friends, due to the intensity of the period,. He wrote a book about Shawkat, after his death, entitled Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace: Surviving Under Saddam, Dying in the New Iraq, and broadcast several BBC podcasts focused around Shawkat's family was coping with the US occupation, and the opposition members who assassinated the head of their family.
References
edit- ^ a b "Ahmad's War". WBUR. Retrieved 2017-10-13.
- ^ "Ahmed Shawkat". Committee to Protect Journalists. Retrieved 2023-06-05.
- ^ David Seddon (2013-01-11). A Political and Economic Dictionary of the Middle East. Routledge. ISBN 9781135355616. Retrieved 2017-10-13.
- ^
Dexter Filkins (2005-10-30). "'Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace': One of the Good Guys". The New York Times. Retrieved 2017-10-13.
Michael Goldfarb, until recently a reporter for National Public Radio, has written a book about one of those Iraqis, Ahmad Shawkat, who was willing to fight, and to die, for the opportunities presented by the American intervention.
- ^ Amazon.com: Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace: Surviving Under Saddam, Dying in the New Iraq: Books: Michael Goldfarb
- ^
"Remembering Ahmad Shawkat". BBC News. 2008-03-08. Retrieved 2017-10-13.
US journalist Michael Goldfarb discusses the murder of his friend Ahmad Shawkat, a politically active Iraqi Kurd.