ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — An international media watchdog is calling on the Kurdish authorities to either bring charges against or release a journalist who was arrested near Erbil on Wednesday.
“Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq must disclose any charges against journalist Sherwan Amin Sherwani; if they cannot do so, they should release him immediately,” said the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Middle East and North Africa representative Ignacio Miguel Delgado in a statement released Thursday. “If the Kurdish regional government seeks to operate under the rule of law, they cannot make journalists disappear on a whim.”
Sherwani was arrested at his home in the Erbil suburb of Sebiran on Wednesday afternoon, his wife, Rugesh Izzaddin Muheiadin, told CPJ. The ten police officers confiscated two of the journalist’s laptops, notebooks, and other work materials.
Muheiadin says they were served with a warrant for Sherwani’s arrest, but neither it or the officers brought a charge against the journalist. She does not know where her husband is being held, or if charges have been filed against him, she told CPJ.
Rudaw English reached out to the KRG's coordinator for international advocacy Dindar Zebari for details on the arrest, but has yet to receive a response.
Human Rights Watch accused the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Tuesday of "unlawfully" shutting down the offices of opposition television outlet NRT during protests over civil sector pay delays and wider economic strife this summer.
NRT's offices in Duhok and Erbil – cities controlled by the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) – have been shut since August, a move Human Rights Watch (HRW) said "raised concerns that the closure is politically motivated."
Scrutiny of press freedoms in the Kurdistan Region was recently stoked further by a draft digital bill condemned by some journalists and politicians for failing to distinguish between private, commercial, and journalist social media accounts when introducing fines for defamatory or threatening posts.
Parliament later shelved the draft, and the committee that wrote the bill is to hold consultations with concerned parties with the aim of redrafting it.
“Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq must disclose any charges against journalist Sherwan Amin Sherwani; if they cannot do so, they should release him immediately,” said the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Middle East and North Africa representative Ignacio Miguel Delgado in a statement released Thursday. “If the Kurdish regional government seeks to operate under the rule of law, they cannot make journalists disappear on a whim.”
Sherwani was arrested at his home in the Erbil suburb of Sebiran on Wednesday afternoon, his wife, Rugesh Izzaddin Muheiadin, told CPJ. The ten police officers confiscated two of the journalist’s laptops, notebooks, and other work materials.
Muheiadin says they were served with a warrant for Sherwani’s arrest, but neither it or the officers brought a charge against the journalist. She does not know where her husband is being held, or if charges have been filed against him, she told CPJ.
Rudaw English reached out to the KRG's coordinator for international advocacy Dindar Zebari for details on the arrest, but has yet to receive a response.
Human Rights Watch accused the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Tuesday of "unlawfully" shutting down the offices of opposition television outlet NRT during protests over civil sector pay delays and wider economic strife this summer.
NRT's offices in Duhok and Erbil – cities controlled by the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) – have been shut since August, a move Human Rights Watch (HRW) said "raised concerns that the closure is politically motivated."
Scrutiny of press freedoms in the Kurdistan Region was recently stoked further by a draft digital bill condemned by some journalists and politicians for failing to distinguish between private, commercial, and journalist social media accounts when introducing fines for defamatory or threatening posts.
Parliament later shelved the draft, and the committee that wrote the bill is to hold consultations with concerned parties with the aim of redrafting it.
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