20/08/2020
A security force from the Asayish closed the NRT channel office in Dohuk, seized all its equipment, and arrested other journalists in the region.
The coordinator of the Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq in Kurdistan reported that members of the Asayish raided the channel’s office on Wednesday night, and confiscated all its equipment, after they removed all its employees, against the backdrop of the channel’s coverage of the demonstrations that took place in Zakho near the Ibrahim Al-Khalil crossing border with Turkey, in protest against preventing the residents of the area from working at the border crossing.
The coordinator added that another security force in the region, at dawn today, Thursday, arrested two correspondents of the channel’s office in the Amadiya and Zakho regions, both Nihad Urmari and Ahmad Zakhoy, and seized their cameras and other equipment, after they covered the incident of a Turkish spy drone crash in the region.
The Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq considers that the continuation of the authorities in the region to arrest journalists and close the media headquarters is an insistence on violating the constitution and a violation of all treaties and laws that guarantee freedom of journalistic work.
The association expresses its astonishment at the federal government’s silence regarding these humanitarian violations and the continuing violations.
The association renews its call on the authorities in the region to put an end to the violations that affect press institutions and their cadres after they have performed their work, demands the release of journalists as soon as possible, and to move away from the policy of intimidation, fear and arbitrary methods against them, and to abide by the constitution.
