Iraqi Kurdish authorities file new charges on jailed journalist Sherwan Sherwani

Authorities in the Iraqi Kurdistan region filed two new charges against imprisoned Kurdish journalist Sherwan Amin Sherwani, who has been sentenced to six years behind bars in February 2021 for "endangering national security," his lawyer said to the press. 

Sherwani, with hundreds of other activists and teachers from the Badinan area of Duhok, were arrested by the Kurdistan Region's Security Council (KRSC) after a series of anti-government protests emerged in Dohuk in 2020.

In June 2021, a court in Erbil upheld the sentence against him and he is now spending his term at Erbil's Adult Reform Prison. 

"The Kurdish authorities have charged my defendant with making forgery," Bashdar Hassan, a volunteer lawyer defending Sherwani, told The New Arab over the phone from Erbil. "Sherwani also faces the charge of threatening an officer in the Zeravani forces.

If he were to be convicted, he might be sentenced to jail terms between five and fifteen years." 

Cellphone footages recorded in the clandestine show the security forces in the city of #Erbil, attacking and threatening journalists of several local media outlets including #Esta while trying to cover a protest against the #KRG on Thursday. #TwitterKurds #Kurdistan pic.twitter.com/UEN28Lb4Yv

— Esta (@Esta__English) April 13, 2023

"The aim behind the baseless charges is to keep him in prison, especially after we as defence lawyers have asked for his conditional release according to Article 331 of Iraq's Criminal Procedure Code as he has completed almost two-thirds of his term," Hassan added. 

Rights monitors have slammed the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) heavy-handed tactics against journalists and activists. Recently, two journalists were arrested on Monday. 

"Security forces in Duhok have arrested journalists Omed Baroshky and Yasir Abdul Rahman without court warrants at their dwelling place in downtown the city and confiscated their journalistic equipment," Ayhan Saeed, representative of The Metro Center for Journalists' Rights and Advocacy, said in sent a statement, a copy of which was sent to TNA. 

Saeed indicated that the new charges against Sherwani and the arrests of the two other journalists are contrary to the law that organises journalism in the Kurdistan region and would only further curb freedom of expression and freedom of the press in the enclave. 

Also on Monday Ahmed Mustafa, a reporter working for KNN, a satellite channel affiliated with the ruling Change Movement (Gorran), was attacked by two men in downtown Erbil. 

According to a survey conducted by Metro, 431 violations were committed by the Kurdish authorities in 2022 against 301 journalists and media outlets.