Sulaimani-based Metro Centre said it was concerned about raids on media offices in Duhok and Sulaimani and called on security forces to “protect the lives of protesters and journalists and not confiscate people’s right of civil defence against invasion and journalists’ right to report.”
Authorities in Duhok arrested NRT’s team reporting on protests in Shiladze and closed the office of NRT in the city on Saturday. All staff have since been released, according to the media outlet. Their office was still closed as of Monday, pending a judge authorizing its reopening.
Two people were killed and 15 injured in protests against Turkish airstrikes in the Kurdistan Region that killed six civilians in the past week and dozens in recent years. Turkey frequently carries out airstrikes and land incursions against alleged PKK positions in the Kurdistan Region’s mountains.
Locals, angry about the civilian deaths and damage to their farmlands, villages, and forests from the bombardments, stormed a Turkish military base in Duhok province on Saturday.
Metro called for all protesters who had been arrested on charges of vandalism to be released and for media to remain neutral in their coverage.
International media advocates note with concern the “politicized environment” for journalists working in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.
In Iraq, “media are regarded above all as political tools,” says Reporters Without Borders, which also condemned the "harassment" of NRT.
RSF condemns the harassment of NRT TV by Kurdish security forces in #Iraq-i #Kurdistan since 26/1, including an attempt to prevent it from covering protests in Duhok, arrests of journalists and the closure of its Duhok bureau. https://t.co/mXunupFGD6
— مراسلون بلا حدود (@RSF_ar) January 28, 2019
Another global monitor of press freedom, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), described the shuttering of NRT's office and arrests of its reporters as behaviour they have come to expect from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
"Shutting down a broadcaster and detaining TV crews for delivering the news clearly contradicts the authorities' claim that Iraqi Kurdistan is a regional hub for democracy and press freedom," said Sherif Mansour, CPJ's coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa.
Updated at 8:24 pm
