Ahmad Shawkat
| Ahmad Shawkat | |
|---|---|
| Other names | أحمد شوكت |
| Born | 1951 Mosul |
| Died | 2003 Mosul |
| Occupation | Professor of medicine, translator, journalist |
| Known for | assassinated by Iraqi resistance members |
Ahmad Shawkat (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] 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 US invasion 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, and a Kurdish translator.[4]
Shortly after the USA occupied Iraq, in 2003, WBUR, a PBS station in Boston, Massachusetts, broadcast a documentary about Shawkat.[5] After the occupation Shawkat worked as a translator for Michael Goldfarb, an American journalist. Goldfarb only worked with Shawkat briefly, but would 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
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ahmad's War, WBUR. Retrieved on 2017-10-13. (in English)
- ↑ Ahmad Shawkat. Committee to Protect Journalists (2003-10-28). Retrieved on 2013-03-13.
- ↑ David Seddon (2013-01-11). A Political and Economic Dictionary of the Middle East. ISBN 9781135355616. Retrieved on 2017-10-13.
- ↑ 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 on 2017-10-13. (in English) “US journalist Michael Goldfarb discusses the murder of his friend Ahmad Shawkat, a politically active Iraqi Kurd.”