12/12/2020
The security forces in Sulaymaniyah arrested the NRT channel reporter, while covering the protests in Sulaymaniyah, yesterday, on Friday.
The director of the channel’s office in Baghdad, Omid Mohammed, said in a phone call that his colleague Karzan Tariq was on a mission to cover the protests near the Sulaymaniyah Governorate building, when a force of the Asayish arrested him, adding that the force took the reporter to an unknown destination. He was not released until this moment.
On the other hand, the Rudaw Channel reporter, Bakhtiar Qadir was beaten by people wearing military uniforms belonging to the Peshmerga forces, the 70 Unit Bitwen Brigade, which is responsible for security in Ranya district, north of Sulaymaniyah governorate. The Peshmerga also broke the channel’s “logo” and then burned it, and confiscated the channel’s camera, before the demonstrators rushed to protect the reporter and remove him from the square of protests.
While the Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq condemns the arrest of fellow journalists and assaulting them while performing their work, it considers what they were exposed to as a violation of the freedom of journalistic work.
The association calls on the authorities in the region to disclose the place of detention of journalists, to release them immediately, to stop using dictatorial methods in dealing with them, and to abide by the constitution.
Furthermore, the association appeals to the UN and international organizations to condemn these acts committed by security men upon orders of the higher authorities in the region.
