Condemnation after Iraqi-Kurd journalists given 6 years in jail

Sentences spark outrage across the Kurdish region where press freedom has been in precipitous decline for some time.

Baghdad, Iraq – Iraqi Kurdish journalists Sherwan Sherwani and Guhdar Zebari were sentenced to six years in jail in a move that has been labelled “unfair and disproportionate” by press freedom group the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The men were arrested in the Kurdish region of Iraq in October last year following their coverage of anti-government protests in Duhok, a province controlled by the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party. On Tuesday, they were found guilty by an Erbil criminal court of jeopardising Kurdish national security, citing social media exchanges in which the journalists critiqued the government. The evidence, Sherwani’s lawyer told CPJ, was “insufficient and baseless”.