Media watchdog calls on KRG to ‘cease harassing’ NRT after Erbil office shut down

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Security forces closed the Erbil offices of NRT on Thursday, the television station reported, a move condemned by an international press freedom advocacy group. 

Police informed staff on the premises that they are not permitted to work, escorted journalists out of the building, and chained the door shut, without explanation, according to NRT. The station’s office in Duhok has also been closed and two of their reporters were detained. One has since been released.

NRT management said they believe they are being targeted because of their coverage of recent protests. “It is part and parcel of a long and well-documented intolerance for dissent and free expression on the part of the Kurdistan Region’s authorities borne of a fear that their corruption and incompetence will be exposed in detail,” read a statement published on NRT’s website.

International media watchdog the Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ) called on authorities to “cease harassing broadcaster NRT.”

“This escalating harassment of NRT is unfair and undemocratic, and begs the question why authorities are so scared of the broadcaster that they have to shutter its offices,” said CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour.

Dindar Zebari, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) international advocacy coordinator, told CPJ that “NRT was suspended “for the meantime” for alleged incitement stemming from its coverage of recent civil unrest.”

The Kurdistan Region has seen several protests and strikes recently as it struggles to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control, boost a weak economy, and pay its workers. Sulaimani health workers who have not been paid their full salaries in months went on strike last week.

A demonstration in Zakho on Wednesday night turned violent. The protest was started by truck drivers condemning a decision to allow Turkish drivers to enter the Kurdistan Region, reversing an earlier move that required drivers to transfer their cargo to local trucks in an attempt to limit spread of the coronavirus. Many Kurds, unemployed because of the pandemic, had picked up work as drivers and they feared losing that income. 

A health directorate spokesperson said on Wednesday that 11 people were slightly injured – nine members of the security forces and two truckers. On Thursday, Tarq Ahmed, head of Duhok police, told Rudaw the number of injured security force members was much higher. 

"If you watch last night's incident, you can see that 61 members of security forces were injured ... as well as four civilians,” he said. 

He said the protest began peacefully and the violence was caused by people “who had nothing to do with the drivers” and fired at the security forces. He blamed a “foreign hand.”

Eighteen people were arrested for violence against the security forces, Ahmed added.

Freedom of the press is under the spotlight in the Kurdistan Region after the parliament shelved a draft bill on digital media that was widely condemned. Critics said the bill failed to distinguish between private, commercial, and journalist social media accounts when introducing fines for defamatory or threatening posts. The committee that drafted the bill will go back to the drawing board, holding with consultations with interested parties.