NRT offices in Duhok, Erbil reopen after protest coverage closures

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Kurdish opposition broadcaster NRT announced that its offices in the cities of Erbil and Duhok, shut for their coverage of protests, were reopened on Wednesday, following local and international condemnation of crackdowns on press in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq.

Both the Erbil and Duhok offices were closed on August 20 after NRT's coverage of protests by truck drivers in Zakho against a decision to allow Turkish trucks to enter the Kurdistan Region. 

Local authorities in the city of Duhok permitted the NRT office in Duhok to reopen four months after it was closed for covering the truck driver protests, the channel said in a statement released on Wednesday.

The NRT office in Erbil had been allowed to reopen in September, but was shut down once more by local security forces two days ago, NRT said. 

“Both offices have been handed over and they will resume their work,” the broadcaster added.

The reopening of the office follows reiterations by United States officials of the need for press freedom in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq.

After a phone call with Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Masrour Barzani on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said his country remains “supportive of media freedom in Iraq”.

The US Consulate in Erbil reiterated Pompeo’s message on Wednesday, saying it “joins Secretary Pompeo in supporting press freedom in the IKR [Iraqi Kurdistan Region]”.

Shaswar Abdulwahid, the businessman and leader of the New Generation opposition party who established NRT, thanked Pompeo “for expressing his support of media freedom in Iraq.”

“We hope that all of us are able to create an environment in Iraq and Kurdistan Region, where journalists are protected from threats of detention and media channels from closure,” Abdulwahid said in a tweet.

NRT’s headquarters in Sulaimani were closed on December 7 by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Ministry of Culture due to its coverage of recent protests in the province over unpaid civil servant salaries, which were met with violence from security forces. 
 
The headquarters were reopened on December 20, but the broadcaster said that much of its equipment had been damaged.

The closure of NRT offices in all three provinces was condemned by international human rights and press freedom groups.

KRG coordinator for international advocacy Dindar Zebari told Human Rights Watch (HRW) on August 23 that NRT and Abdulwahid “consistently aimed to exploit the freedom media agencies enjoy in [the Kurdistan Region] for their own political agenda … they usually resort to provocative propaganda campaigns amid critical circumstances, such as during the war against terrorism and coronavirus outbreak.”

International press freedom watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) wrote a letter to Kurdistan Region premier Barzani, sent to a KRG email address, calling on him to bring an end to “recent deterioration of press freedom” in the Kurdistan Region.
 
“We at the Committee to Protect Journalists… write to express our grave concern regarding the recent deterioration of press freedom in Iraqi Kurdistan and call on you to condemn the recent intimidation of local news outlets and to do everything in your power to ensure they are able to carry out their work freely and safely without fear of reprisal,” CPJ’s Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney wrote.

"We also urge you to use your authority to bring an end to the harassment of broadcaster NRT, and to immediately release all imprisoned journalists.”

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