Iraqi Kurdistan's president under fire for excluding journalists, activists from special pardon

The president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region is under fire for excluding imprisoned Kurdish journalists and activists from a recent special pardon. 

The president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region (KRG) Nechirvan Barzani has been criticised for excluding hundreds of imprisoned Kurdish journalists and activists in a special amnesty for thousands of local security personnel. 

Dilshad Shahab, Barzani's senior advisor told Rudaw Kurdish broadcaster that as per a decree by Barzani, 1,659 persons, who had arrest warrants and were mostly fugitives from the Kurdish security forces, were pardoned. 

"Those [pardoned] did not commit crimes and they pose no danger to society," Shahab said.

Kurdish lawmakers and defence lawyers of hundreds of imprisoned journalists and activists rebuked Barzani's decision, although the president in a previous decision reduced the prison sentences of tens of the inmates. 

Kurdish authorities sentenced hundreds of journalists, teachers, and civil activists from Erbil and Duhok provinces in the wake of wide anti-government protests during the last three years.

Prisoners from Badinan, including journalists Sherwan Amin Sherwani and Guhdar Zebari, and activists Shvan Saeed, Ayaz Karam, and Hariwan Issa all have been sentenced to six years imprisonment in February 2021.

In June 2021, a court in Erbil upheld the six-year sentences against the journalists and activists. In July, the inmates launched hunger strikes in protest of being denied the right of conditional release as they had spent two-thirds of their prison terms. 

As per a decree by Barzani in February, the sentence of Sherwani was reduced by 50 per cent, while the sentences of the other four were reduced by 60 per cent. 

"I think this is a big injustice. We have been waiting for a long time...the president's pardoning should have included our clients," Mohammed Abdulla, a Kurdish lawyer from Erbil defending the journalists and activists, told The New Arab. 

The prisoners, most of whom were sentenced for "endangering national security" on what many argue are politically motivated charges, are currently being kept behind bars at the Adult Reform Prison in Erbil administered by the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) ministry of labour and social affairs.

Recently the KRG authorities transferred Sherwan Sherwani to solitary confinement for nearly ten days, Abdulla noted. 

Ayhan Saeed, brother of Shvan Saeed and the representative of relatives of the prisoners, told TNA that many families are concerned about the destiny of their loved ones in the KRG jails. 

"We feel there is a filthy plan against our relatives and against the journalists and civil activists inside the KRG prisons. We are suspicious of the KRG authorities that they are capable of murdering our relatives," he said.  

Authorities in the Iraqi Kurdistan region on 10 May freed Berivan Ayoub Hassan, a Kurdish protester and mother of five, after she spent almost two years in prison on charges of "endangering national security".

Berivan, along with hundreds of other protesters from the Badinan area of Duhok province, was held by the Kurdistan Region's Security Council (KRSC) after anti-government protests occurred in Dohuk in 2020.