Iraqi journalist who dedicated his life to freedom of speech. Ahmad Shawkat was an intellectual who wrote poetry and gave political sermons in the guise of literary criticism. In the mid-1990s, he was arrested for the fourth time, for writing a collection of stories lampooning the dictator, Saddam. Ahmad started a weekly journal, which he called Bela Etajah (No Directions), alluding to the fact that he took no orders on what to publish from anyone. Ahmad Shawkat, a Kurd, was murdered in his hometown of Mosul.