Trial of journalists, activists was open and transparent: Kurdistan Region Judicial Council

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdistan Region’s Judicial Council has said that the trial of five people in Erbil on Monday and Tuesday, handed prison sentences on charges of endangering the region’s security, was a “transparent” process where human rights activists and representatives of foreign consulates attended the hearings.

“The judicial process was conducted in an open and transparent fashion and with the attendance of a large number of parliamentarians, representatives of foreign consulates, the defendants’ lawyers, representatives of human rights organizations, journalists and media outlets,” the statement from the Kurdistan Region’s Judicial Council said on Wednesday. “The trial was fair.”

While Dindar Zebari, the KRG's Coordinator for International Advocacy, claimed in a phone call to Rudaw that German and American diplomatic representatives were present for the trial, both missions have denied their attendance.

Five defendants, who were detained in Duhok province from August to October last year, were sentenced by the Branch 2 of Erbil’s Criminal Court to six years each for endangering national security. The cases of two other defendants were sent back to the court for further hearings amid a lack of evidence, their relatives said.

The verdict has provoked condemnation from various sides including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Human Rights Watch, a number of parliamentarians, and political parties in the Kurdistan Region. The council said statements from official bodies and politicians are “without a doubt considered interference in the judicial process.”

“There are legal avenues for appealing the sentence and without a doubt the lawyers will appeal the sentence, and thus there was no need to issue these kinds of statements and interfere in the judicial process,” the statement added.

While the families of the defendants have stated that they are innocent, Kurdish authorities say that the men were working as “spies” and tried to harm stability in the Region.

Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani previously claimed the detainees were “spies” and saboteurs plotting terror attacks against foreign missions, abductions and assassinations.

“First of all, I have a lot of respect for journalists and the profession and I support the freedom of expression. In no way are we preventing criticism of the government,” Barzani said in a press conference on February 10. “Those who were detained … are neither activists nor journalists. Some of them were spies, they spied for other countries… Some were saboteurs.”

“I want to reassure you that those detained were neither activists nor journalists. They were only wearing the clothes of journalists, but they were busy doing other things underneath.”

"These recent convictions only further compound the Kurdistan Region's standing as a place in which journalist can be prosecuted merely for reporting on and critiquing government policies they object to, and where citizens can be prosecuted for expressing concerns about the political elites,” Belkis Wille, senior crisis and conflict researcher at HRW told Rudaw English via email.

The CPJ issued a statement on Tuesday calling on the KRG to immediately release two of the detainees - Sherwan Amin Sherwani and Guhdar Zebari – both of whom are journalists. “Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq should immediately release both journalists, drop the charges against them, and cease harassing the media,” the CPJ said.

The office of Dindar Zebari, the KRG's Coordinator for International Advocacy, issued a statement Wednesday evening, describing the trial as "very transparent and open." He noted that representatives of diplomatic missions and local organizations were presents at the court's proceedings. However, the diplomatic missions alleged to have attended the trial have subsequently denied their presence.  

Updated on 21/02/21: A previous version of this article had erroneously stated that German and US consular representatives had attended the trial, based off information from the KRG's Coordinator for International Advocacy Dindar Zebari. Both diplomatic missions have subsequently denied any attendance at the trial.  Rudaw has updated the article to reflect the new information.