ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Sulaimani-based NRT news channel reported on Sunday that security forces had blocked the broadcast of an interview with its owner and jailed opposition leader, Shaswar Abdulwahid.
An interior ministry force arrived at NRT “under the order of the authorities and the ministry of culture,” the broadcaster late Sunday, adding that “they halted the Tawtwe [discussion in Kurdish] program with Shaswar Abdulwahid.”
The undated interview, conducted over a phone call, was scheduled to be aired at 7:00 pm.
Abdulwahid, leader of Kurdistan Region’s main opposition, New Generation Movement (NGM), was arrested by Sulaimani security forces in mid-August, following a judicial decree dated August 3 that revealed he had been sentenced in absentia to six months in prison under Article 431 of the Iraqi Penal Code, which pertains to making serious threats against others, their property, or their reputation. The court later reduced the term to five months.
Rudaw English contacted the ministry of culture, but it was not immediately available for a comment.
The Sulaimani-based Metro Center for Journalists' Rights and Advocacy said in a statement on Facebook that “dozens of convicts for drug trafficking, hashish users, women killers, child killers, and several other criminals have had cameras brought into prisons and interviews conducted with them,” but said that authorities would “close the channel” upon broadcast of the interview
“Are our ministries guided by the laws of the parliament or the laws of [political] parties?” Metro said, adding, “Our full support for NRT and shame on the enemies of word [free speech].”
NRT noted that they had been warned in advance by the ministry of culture not to air the interview on the grounds that it goes against law, but the broadcaster disputes it.
A decree by the ministry, dated October 29, instructed media to “stay away from talking to or taking statements from imprisoned persons” under Articles 3 and 6 of a 2017 instruction from the labor and social affairs ministry that prohibits bringing cameras and recording equipment into correctional facilities or broadcasting interviews with prisoners.
Federal elections are scheduled for November 11, with campaign posters for Abdulwahid carrying the slogan roughly translated as: “Woe to the enemy whose hope lies in prison” - implying that an opponent who believes imprisonment will defeat him is destined to fail.
Since its leader’s arrest, the NGM has repeatedly claimed the detention is politically motivated.
Earlier on Sunday, Qubad Talabani, Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region and a senior member of Sulaimani's ruling Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), held a meeting with a number of media outlets in Erbil.
He stated that working in the media is “difficult” in Erbil and expressed his support for journalists.
“The PUK has not only safeguarded press freedom but has also stopped the other side from curbing it,” he wrote in a Facebook post after the meeting, without specifying whom he meant by “the other side.”
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