CPTnet
August 19, 2003
HEBRON REFLECTION: On the life and death of Mazen Da'na

by Kathy Kamphoefner

Since CPT's first weeks in Hebron in June 1995, Mazen Da'na, the "old
man" among Hebron's journalists, welcomed the team and kept us informed of
events in the city of Hebron. He even helped team members find their first
apartment. Usually, someone on the team would drop in on the journalists
who hung out in his office every day during the summer of 1995, and they'd
fill us in on what was going on in Hebron. We'd phone them when we came
across something happening; more often, they phoned us so we could witness
the events.

Mazen Da'na was shot and killed on Sunday in Iraq, most likely by a US
soldier in an American tank. Da'na, age 43, had worked as a Reuters TV
journalist for twelve years. He was finishing up a three-month reporting
assignment from Iraq, and training his successor Nael es-Shyoukhi, also a
friend of the team, on the logistics of videotaping under the US occupation
of Iraq. The two were filming outside the Abu Ghraib prison, when a solder
shot Mazen in the chest. He was dead on arrival at an army field hospital.
He's the father of two young daughters and two young sons. How we will miss
him.

Last summer in Hebron, I remember vividly watching him lie on the ground in
front of an oncoming tank, to get just the right camera angle, as the tank
invaded the Manara Produce Market. I dropped by the Hebron journalists'
office last August, because I hadn't visited with them in awhile. Mazen
was just preparing to go to editing school in London. He said he hoped to
get off the streets with his camera, "or I will die here," he said. Having
often seen him in action, I didn't doubt it. I teased him about how gray
his hair was getting.

The Hebron journalists have suffered a lot to get out the news to the
world. Almost every photo and video footage you see about Hebron is the
work of the heroic stringers who are residents of the city. They have been
repeatedly beaten by Israeli settlers and shot at by the Israeli army. In
the month of August 1997, eleven journalists were shot in Hebron alone;
Mazen was one of them.

Four of us from CPT went to offer condolences to the family on Sunday
evening. Everyone there was talking about how "the Americans" shot him.
There were no words to convey our grief and shame.

Seventeen journalists and their assistants have been killed in Iraq since
this second Gulf war began. Reporters without Borders, as well as the
Committee to Protect Journalists, and other organizations have called for
investigations. We want a full Congressional investigation of the
treatment of the international press in Iraq. Everyone deserves the
protection of the US First Amendment.