In a press release, the UCJ slammed the US raids on the Palestine Hotel that houses many foreign journalists as well as two offices run by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV and the UAE-based Abu Dhabi TV as "criminal act".

Those attacks "stigmatize as an atrocious war crime and barbaric attack against the freedom of press and the right to inform humanity," the statement said.

Two cameramen from Reuters and the Spanish television Telecinco were killed and three other Reuters reporters were wounded when a US tank fired a single shell into the Palestine Hotel.

In another attack, Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Ayoub was killed and one of his colleagues wounded when their office in Baghdad was struck by a US warplane.

Al Jazeera, one of the most popular Arab TV channels, has denounced the incident as a deliberate attack by the US forces. US and British officials have accused the Al Jazeera of showing images of slain coalition soldiers and US prisoners of war held by Iraq.

The UCJ said it supports the demand of the International Federation of Journalists for an independent investigation into the incidents.

(Xinhua News Agency April 9, 2003)