Corrects 4th paragraph in story dated April 5 to show International Federation of Journalists donated 25,000 euros ($33,000), not the International Monetary Fund.

BAGHDAD, April 5 (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki paid tribute on Thursday to Iraqi journalists killed covering the four-year-old conflict and defended his government's restrictions on some media.

Since the start of the U.S.-led Iraq war in March 2003, 76 Iraqi journalists have been killed and 12 have been kidnapped since 2004, according to New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

"National media outlets that are committed to serve the truth have turned into a spearhead against terrorists who have launched a violent campaign against journalists faithful to their nation and people," said an aide reading out a statement on the prime minister's behalf.

At an event honouring slain Iraqi journalists, the government donated 50 million dinars ($38,000) to their families and the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists gave 25,000 euros ($33,000).

Maliki defended government crackdowns against media which he said "did not adhere to work ethic rules".

His government ejected pan-Arab Qatar-based Al Jazeera television two years ago and accuses it of helping to "spread death and destruction" in its reporting.

In January, it ordered the closure of Sharkiya, a popular Iraqi channel based in Dubai, and in November two local channels were briefly taken off air.

It also forced Jazeera's main rival, Al-Arabiya, to shut its Baghdad bureau for a month in September 2006.

"Your government, in order to protect the lands and defend its peoples' interests, was forced to take very limited measures against a number of media outlets ... which used biased, provocative language that spurs hatred and abhorrence," Maliki's statement said.

"And these measures cannot be looked at as against the freedom of press.

"If any country in the world was subjected to what Iraqi suffers from today from terrorist operations, it would ... take severe punitive measures against media outlets."

The government has also clamped down on media outlets it says incite sectarianism or violence. Most locally based channels are controlled by political parties or religious factions.

A Baghdad satellite television station run by Iraq's biggest Sunni political party briefly went off the air on Thursday after a suicide truck bomb exploded nearby, killing one person and wounding three.

(Additional reporting by Aws al-Rubaie)

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