ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The US Consulate General in Erbil on Thursday welcomed the decision of a Kurdistan Region court to release two Badinan detainees, after their respective sentences were reduced to two years last month, in a week which saw the publication of a damning US State Department report into human rights issues in the Region including criticism regarding restrictions on expression, and the arbitrary detentions of journalists, protesters, and activists.
“We welcome the Duhok court’s April 13 decision to release 2 of the “Badinan” detainees, Sherwan Taha Ameen & Masoud Shingali,” the consulate said. “We urge [the] KRG to continue to work with the international community to strengthen freedom of expression & ensure fair & transparent trial procedures in #IKR.”
Masoud Ali Haji (Shingali), 48, was arrested in Duhok on August 25, 2020, and Sherwan Taha Ameen, 36, in Duhok on September 5, 2020, both accused of anti-state activities and charged under Iraqi Penal Code Law No. 111 of 1969, article 156 as amended by Law No.21 (2003).
Erbil Appellate Criminal Court on March 31 reduced the sentences of Sherwan Taha and Masoud Ali from two and a half years, and three and a half years respectively, to two years each, their lawyer Bashdar Hassan announced after the hearing. As a result, the men had served an adequate amount of time to warrant their release in a decision made by Dohuk Appeal Court on April 13.
According to the international human rights organisation and monitoring group Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) Iraqi Kurdistan, both men participated in non-violent demonstrations against the government cutting salaries of public employees. Yet Masoud Ali and Sherwan Taha were sentenced under the Kurdistan Region’s anti-state activity law, in unrelated charges tied to a letter Masoud Ali was accused of sending to the US, French and German Consulates in Erbil in mid-2020, requesting pressure be put on the Turkish government to stop bombardments in the Region.
The prosecution for Sherwan Taha, who was handed the lesser sentence, told the court that he helped Masoud Ali to translate the contents which were also, more significantly, claimed to have accused the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of being complicit in Turkish military operations in the Region. Both men denied the charges, CPT told Rudaw English.
The men’s trials were postponed four times. On October 20, 2021, the final statements from the prosecution and defense were heard. One judge resigned from the case after hearing the evidence, so the decision was postponed. The following month, in early November, Masoud Ali was convicted and sentenced to three years and six months in prison, and Sherwan Taha handed a two years and six months sentence.
At the time, Hassan told reporters outside Erbil Appellate Criminal Court that the decision was “shocking.” The defendants filed an appeal on December 6. As they were held in pre-trial detention for over a year before their arrests, the men were granted early release on condition - including monitoring for five years - after the court reduced their sentences this week.
Speaking to Rudaw English on Friday, Kamaran Osman from CPT said that the men were “doing very well,” and were delighted to be reunited with their families. Sherwan Taha has two children, a son and daughter. Masoud Ali is a father of three.
Video footage received by CPT shows the men embracing their loved ones. But the reunion was bittersweet for Sherwan Taha. His mother, Nahida Malayahia, who was in her fifties, died of a heart attack in September after repeated rejections to visit her son, the day after another unsuccessful attempt to see him in an Asayish prison. His father, too, suffered a non-fatal heart attack while his son was detained.
Osman has urged caution and stressed that the fate of remaining detainees is unknown, many of whom remain in custody without a scheduled court date nor formal charges. “We are asking for the immediate release of all remaining prisoners, and setting a date for the just trial of the five remaining Badinan prisoners who are yet to be tried, after being held in detention for nineteen months,” he said.
Towards the end of last year, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a report on freedom of expression in the Kurdistan Region, expressing human rights concerns over a number of recent trials, but also welcoming KRG engagement, saying it had taken "concrete steps toward the protection of the right to freedom of expression in recent months."
In February, a decree issued by Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani reduced the sentence of five separate Badinan activists and journalists by 60 percent, having been put on trial in February 2021 for “endangering the national security of the Kurdistan Region” following their involvement in the 2020 Dohuk protests. They were found guilty and sentenced to six years in prison, with the appeal court upholding the ruling that summer, saying the men had intended to “target sensitive areas and establishments in the Kurdistan Region.”
Following repeatedly delayed trials, Berivan Ayoub Hassan - a 35-year old mother of five, held without charge for over 16 months in the Region - was sentenced to two years in prison in March, meaning she will be released under the same conditions later this month.
The US State Department report published on Tuesday said that the KRG “inconsistently applied procedures to address allegations of abuse” by members of the Ministry of Interior and the Asayish.
It cited reports that the Peshmerga and Asayish security forces in the Kurdistan Region frequently ignored the law, claiming that local media and human rights groups reported that authorities “arrested suspects in security sweeps without warrants, particularly under the antiterrorism law, and frequently held such detainees for prolonged periods without charge or registration.”
“The government periodically released detainees, usually after concluding that it lacked sufficient evidence for the courts to convict them, but many others remained in detention pending review of other outstanding charges,” it continued.
In their response to the report, the KRG on Thursday stressed that it was “fully committed to the rule of law, to a fair and impartial legal process, and to the freedom of the media,” and that the situation is enhanced by “the significant presence of diplomats and international agencies in the Region.”
