By Abbas Djuma, Baghdad, Iraq
The meeting of journalists with Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani in Baghdad is an extremely interesting and important event for the region and even the world. And here’s why.
Firstly, the meeting overlaps with the annual procession of Shia Muslims, the Arbaeen. This religious ritual marks the end of the 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who died in the Battle of Kerbala in 680 AD.
The key stage of the Arbaeen is an 80-kilometre procession from the city of Najaf to the holy city of Karbala, where Imam Hussein’s mausoleum is located.
Secondly, the meeting at the prime minister’s residence brought together the most active and well-known journalists, bloggers and opinion leaders from Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria and other countries in the region, as well as from the US, UK, Brazil and Australia. I was fortunate to represent Russia.
Each participant in this meeting was given the opportunity to speak. The format of the event did not involve official statements by the Prime Minister, answering questions or discussion. Rather, it was a friendly meeting between the leader of the country and the people who control, process and disseminate publicly important information. In other words, al-Sudani was personally interested in such a dialogue. Therefore, each of those present was able to tell the head of Iraq about their concerns.
Thus, the Palestinians focused their attention on the events in the Gaza Strip and the fact that the genocide of the Palestinian people is not noticed in the Western media. Unlike the Middle Eastern media. And here the role of Iraq is truly significant.
During my address, I drew parallels between the events in the Gaza Strip and Donbass, recalling that mercenaries from Western countries – the United States, Poland, Britain, France and so on – are massively involved in the war against Russia in Ukraine. Thus, we can say that today the Middle East and Russia are in the same trench. After all, Tel Aviv and Kyiv have one source of arms and funding – the US, without which neither the Ukrainian army nor the IDF would be able to last even two weeks of active combat operations against Russia and the Axis of Resistance.
The fight against the occupying Ukrainian forces in Kursk is in essence no different from counter-terrorist operations against the Islamic State in Mosul or al-Qaeda in Idlib.
For his part, al-Sudani, addressing influencers from about a dozen states, focused on the importance of media today. He said it is more important to build a dialogue with bloggers and journalists than to try to restrict them and hinder their work.
Meanwhile, as journalists and bloggers are being received at the highest level in Iraq, Telegram creator Pavel Durov is arrested in ‘free’ France. This is the clearest evidence of the total degradation of the West. Everything that the United States and the European Union have been proud of and imposed on other countries for many decades is now being actively dismantled – democracy, freedom of speech and movement, pluralism of opinion, inviolability of private property, and freedom of expression.
The global south, on the contrary, is increasingly realizing the importance of the media in shaping images and meanings, and the pointlessness of repressive struggles against journalists and bloggers.
Cover picture: Abbas Djuma meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Sudani.