Iraqi Kurdistan: Five activists jailed after allegedly protesting Turkish military base released

Five activists from the Iraqi Kurdish province of Duhok were freed from prison on Thursday, having served two-year sentences for allegedly taking part in a demonstration against Turkish military aggression in the area, a defence lawyer said.

The five men, from the town of Shiladze, allegedly took part in a demonstration on 26 January 2019 after Turkish airstrikes killed at least six civilians a week prior.

The demonstration soon turned violent, with protesters storming and torching a Turkish military base. Two civilians were killed in the protest when Turkish and Iraqi Kurdish forces tried to disperse the angry crowd.

The five men - Nechirvan Badie, Mahmood Naji, Yusuf Shareef, Kovan Tariq, and Amjad Yousif - are among hundreds of people arrested by Kurdish security forces for "endangering the region's national security".

All five were freed on Thursday, Bashdar Hassan, a lawyer from the defence team told The New Arab in a brief phone call.  

"Unfortunately, the court was not independent in its trial of the five activists, and their sentence was a pure political penalty," Hassan said.

The prisoners were tortured by the Kurdish authorities while interrogated, the lawyer claimed.

Videos posted to social media show people in Shiladze jubilantly receiving the five men after their release from prison.

#Sheladze prisoners welcomed after two years of unjust detention by PDK
The people of Sheladze do not bow their heads پاش دوو ساڵ بە ناحەق گرتنیان لەلایەن پارتیەوە گیراوانی شێلادزێ لە ڕقی پارتی بە ئاھەنگ پێشوازیکران
گەلی شێلادزێ سەر دانەنوێنێ #Kurdistan #Badinan #KRG pic.twitter.com/OGQ5FUjZ1Q

— karzan Alı کارزان علی (@KarzanAliOsman) December 14, 2022

Under Iraqi law, the men were eligible for conditional release six months ago but were denied that right "due to the direct interference by the senior officials in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)", Ayhan Saeed, the representative of families of Duhok province prisoners told The New Arab.

Saeed claimed the five men had been "subject to physical and psychological torture while in detention".

Turkey has established a series of military outposts inside the Iraqi Kurdistan region on the pretext of fighting militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who have bases in the mountains straddling Iraq's borders with Turkey and Iran.

The PKK, a Kurdish guerrilla force fighting for autonomy in Turkey, was formed in the late 1970s by militant leader Abdullah Ocalan.

It is listed as a "terrorist organisation" by Turkey, the US, the UK, and the EU, and its bloody conflict with the Turkish military has left at least 40,000 people dead since 1984, many of them civilians.

Turkey and Iran regularly conduct air and ground operations in neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan to root out the PKK and Iranian Kurdish opposition parties. Civilians are often caught in the crossfire.