ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Amnesty International has condemned last week’s sentencing of activists and journalists detained in Duhok last year, saying they must be immediately released.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has come under fire after Sherwan Sherwani, Shvan Saeed, Ayaz Karam, Hariwan Issa and Guhdar Zebari were sentenced to six years in prison by an Erbil court on February 17, accused of destabilizing the Region’s security.
The men were subject to an “unfair trial” based on trumped-up charges, the rights organisation said on Friday evening.
The five are now on hunger strike, Amnesty said, adding they “must be immediately and unconditionally released.”
The men were arrested in Duhok province last year after anti-government protests over unpaid wages. Kurdish security forces, known as Asayish, detained over two dozen people, including a teacher whose family says committed no offense.
Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani previously claimed the detainees were “spies” and saboteurs plotting terror attacks against foreign missions, and abductions and assassinations.
Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have also spoken out against the court’s ruling, and foreign missions, including the US embassy, are said to be closely following the case.
According to the CPJ, the sentencing of journalists Sherwani and Zebari “proves that the Iraqi Kurdistan regional government has finally dropped the pretense of caring about press freedom.”
The Kurdistan Region Judicial Council said the trial was “open and transparent.”
Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani said the appeal court must review the case “relying on and respecting law, human rights, and the legal rights of the defendant and the plaintiff.”
The EU on Friday also broached the issue of press freedom in the Kurdistan Region with the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, calling on the Iraqi government to prevent and investigate allegations of intimidation, arbitrary arrests and killings of journalists and civil rights activists, “keeping the recent lengthy prison-sentences against journalists and activists in KRI in mind.”
The CPJ has previously warned about restrictions on press freedom in the Kurdistan Region, warning in 2019 that press freedom in the area was “on the brink of extinction.”
