ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Seven people who were detained by security forces at a protest in Duhok on May 16 were released on bail on Thursday, according to their lawyer. One individual, accused of organizing the protest, remains in custody.
Teachers, activists, and journalists were reportedly detained in Duhok last weekend during a protest against the government’s failure to pay public sector salaries on time.
Ramadhan Artesey, the lawyer representing them, told Rudaw on Thursday that seven of the protesters have been released on bail. Badal Barwari, said to be one of the key organizers of the protest, remains in custody.
The seven will stand trial after Eid. Barwari meanwhile will remain in detention until after the religious holiday, said Artesey.
It is not clear whether those released on Thursday were teachers, activists, or journalists, but police who spoke to Rudaw insist they did not detain any journalists.
The Kurdistan Region-based Metro Center, which promotes press freedoms, claimed that several journalists from opposition-affiliated news agencies were arrested while reporting on the protest.
Belkis Wille, senior Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said Tuesday that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has “just hammered another nail into the proverbial coffin of free expression in Iraq, arresting dozens in an effort to prevent a planned protest.”
“I have sat in over a dozen meetings with KRI officials over the last four years in which they laud their compliance with human rights, always ‘in contrast to Baghdad’. This most recent incident shows the Kurdistan Region is no bastion of peaceful assembly and free expression,” she added.
Ignacio Miguel Delgado, Middle East and North Africa Representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said on Monday: “Once again the Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq have used the laws at their convenience to stamp out news coverage that makes the government uncomfortable.”
However, Dindar Zebari, KRG Coordinator for International Advocacy, told Rudaw English on Tuesday one unnamed journalist was arrested during the protest – differing with the police account of events.
“One journalist was arrested amid the protest, but he announced that he is a journalist in the final stages of investigation; after which he was solely released (not on bail),” Zebari said via email.
“Generally, the arrested protesters were not journalists, hence they were suspected of arranging a riot. Otherwise, the Kurdistan Press Law is fully active and it will be executed when journalists are involved,” he said.
Zebari claimed the protest organizers did not have permission from Duhok authorities and that the gathering broke coronavirus containment rules.
Concerns about the state of freedom of expression in the Kurdistan Region are routinely raised by local and international media watchdogs, with specific emphasis on press freedom following rights violations, including the imprisonment and death of journalists known for their anti-establishment writing.
In return for its 12.67 percent share of the 2019 federal budget, the KRG was supposed to send Iraq’s state oil marketing company 250,000 barrels of oil per day, but has consistently failed to do so, claiming contractual arrangements and debts owed to foreign oil companies prevented the handover.
In mid-April, Iraq’s former Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi finally lost patience and called on the finance ministry to halt budget transfers to the KRG for 2020.
With Mustafa al-Kadhimi installed as Iraq’s new prime minister, Erbil and Baghdad are busy thrashing out a new oil-for-budget agreement.
The Kurdistan Region’s unpaid civil servants can only wait and hope for the best.
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