Courageous Female Iraqi Journalists

Being a male reporter in Iraq is bad enough......but a woman?

The NY Times reports on an award given to 6 very, very brave female Uraqi journalists:

"Six women who risked their lives reporting in Iraq, a Mexican reporter who faced death threats for her reporting on pedophiles, and an Ethiopian journalist who was charged with treason received awards for courage Tuesday from the International Women's Media Foundation.

ABC News' Bob Woodruff, who was nearly killed in a January 2006 bombing in Iraq, presented the award to the Iraqi women for their work in the McClatchy news organization's Baghdad bureau. The recipients were Sahar Issa, Huda Ahmed, Shatha al Awsy, Alaa Majeed, ZainebObeid and Ban Adil Sarhan.

Eighty percent of reporters killed in Iraq are Iraqis, Woodruff said, adding that the women slept with bulletproof vests and helmets by their beds.

Issa accepted the courage award on behalf of the women, saying Iraqi journalists must lead double lives, not telling friends or relatives what they do because of the dangers, and knowing that ''every interview we conduct may be our last.''

''So why continue?'' she asked. ''It's because I'm tired of being branded a terrorist, tired that a human life lost in my country is no loss at all. This is not the future I envision for my children. They are not terrorists, and their lives are not valueless.''

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