“The aggressive treatment meted out to journalists by Erbil security forces while covering a peaceful protest is deeply concerning,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna, in New York. “We urge Iraqi Kurdistan authorities not to target journalists during protests, which has been a recurring issue.”

Kurdistan has been in a financial crisis since the federal government began cutting funding to the region after it started exporting oil independently in 2014. In 2024, the Federal Supreme Court ordered Baghdad to pay Kurdistan’s civil servants directly but ongoing disagreements between the two governments mean their salaries continue to be delayed and unpaid.

Since the end of Kurdistan’s civil war in 1998, the semi-autonomous region has been divided between the dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Erbil and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Sulaymaniyah. While the KDP has discouraged the teachers’ protests, the PUK has sometimes supported them, including through affiliated media outlets.

At the February 9 protest, a crowd of teachers from Sulaymaniyah tried to reach Erbil, the capital, and were stopped at Degala checkpoint, where CPJ recorded the following attacks:

• Pro-opposition New Generation Movement NRT TV camera operator Ali Abdulhadi and reporter Shiraz Abdullah were stopped from filming by about seven armed security officers, known in Kurdish as Asayish, according to a video posted by the outlet.

“One of them chambered a round [into his gun]. I tried to leave but one of them attempted to strike me with the butt of a rifle, hitting only my finger. Another grabbed my camera and took it,” Abdulhadi told CPJ.

• Diplomatic’s reporter Zhilya Ali collapsed from teargas, a video posted by the privately owned digital outlet showed.

“There are still wounds on my face from when I fell,” she told CPJ, adding that she was taken to hospital and given oxygen.

• An ambulance took pro-PUK digital outlet Zhyan Media’s reporter Mardin Mohammed and camera operator Mohammed Mariwan to a hospital in Koya after they were teargassed.

“I couldn’t see anything and was struggling to breathe. My cameraman and I lost consciousness for three hours,” Mariwan told CPJ.

• Pro-PUK satellite channel Kurdsat News reporters Gaylan Sabir and Amir Mohammed and camera operators Sirwan Sadiq and Hemn Mohammed were teargassed and their equipment was confiscated, the outlet said.

• Privately owned Westga News said five staff — reporters Omer Ahmed, Shahin Fuad, and Amir Hassan, and camera operators Zanyar Mariwan and Ahmed Shakhawan — were attacked and teargassed. Ahmed told CPJ that a security officer grabbed a camera while they were broadcasting, while Fuad said another camera, microphone, and a livestreaming encoder were also taken and not returned.

• Pro-PUK Slemani News Network reporter Kochar Hamza was carried to safety by protesters after she collapsed due to tear gas, a video by the digital outlet showed. She told CPJ that she and her camera operator Sivar Baban were treated at hospitals twice.

“My face is still swollen, and I feel dizzy,” she told CPJ.

• A team from Payam TV, a pro-opposition Kurdistan Justice Group satellite channel, required treatment for teargas exposure.

“We were placed on oxygen and prescribed medication,” reporter Ramyar Osman told CPJ, adding that camera operator Sayed Yasser was hit in the knee by a rubber bullet.

• Madah Jamal, a reporter with the pro-opposition Kurdistan Islamic Union Speda TV satellite channel, told CPJ that he was also teargassed.

• Pro-PUK digital outlet Xendan’s reporter Shahen Wahab told CPJ that she and camera operator Garmian Omar suffered asthma attacks due to the teargas.

• Pro-PUK satellite channel Gali Kurdistan’s reporter Karwan Nazim told CPJ that he had to stop reporting because he couldn’t breathe and asked his office to send additional staff.

“I had an allergic reaction and my face turned red. I had to go to the hospital,” he said.

Raided and arrested

Abdulwahab Ahmed, head of the Erbil office of the pro-opposition Gorran Movement KNN TV, told CPJ that two unplated vehicles carrying Asayish officers followed KNN TV’s vehicle to the office at around 1:30 p.m., after reporters Pasha Sangar and Mohammed KakaAhmed and camera operator Halmat Ismail made a live broadcast showing the deployment of additional security forces by the United Nations compound, which was the protesters’ intended destination.

“They identified themselves as Asayish forces, forcibly took our mobile phones, and accused us of recording videos. They checked our social media accounts,” Sangar told CPJ.

KakaAhmed told CPJ, “They found a video I had taken near the U.N. compound on my phone, deleted it, and then returned our devices.”

In another incident that evening, Asayish forces arrested pro-PUK digital outlet Politic Press’s reporter Taman Rawandzi and camera operator Nabi Malik Faisal while they were live broadcasting about the protest and took them to Zerin station for several hours of questioning.

“They asked us to unlock our phones but we refused. Then they took our phones and connected them to a computer,” Rawandzi told CPJ, adding that his phone was now operating slowly and he intended to replace it.

“They told us not to cover such protests,” he said.

CPJ phoned Erbil’s Asayish spokesperson Ardalan Fatih but he declined to comment.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On Monday, April 17, eight officers with the regional Asayish intelligence agency raided Rast Media’s office in the city of Duhok and detained director and founder Omed Baroshky and editor Yasir Abdulrahman, according to news reports and Baroshky and Abdulrahman, who spoke to CPJ by phone.

Officers held Baroshky and Abdulrahman at the Asayish’s local headquarters for about two hours and then released them without any explanation for the raid or their detention. Baroshky told CPJ that the officers confiscated four computers, two cameras, books, and other reporting equipment, and had not returned it as of Thursday.

Separately on Monday, two unidentified men attacked KNN TV reporter Ahmad Mustafa and camera operator Omer Khabati in the Iraqi Kurdistan capital of Erbil, according to news reports and those journalists, who spoke with CPJ by phone. In a statement later that day, the Erbil Asayish forces said that they had arrested one of the assailants.

“Iraqi Kurdistan authorities must immediately return all equipment confiscated from Rast Media and cease harassing its journalists, and ensure that those who separately attacked a team from KNN TV are held to account,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour, in Washington, D.C. “Authorities must do more to protect members of the press from arbitrary detentions and attacks.”

Baroshky told CPJ that Asayish officers did not present any arrest warrant when they detained him and Abdulrahman. The officers locked the outlet’s office after the raid, and it remained closed as of Thursday while the organization’s staff continued to work remotely, Baroshky said.

Abdulrahman told CPJ that Asayish officers threatened that they would not be able to work from their office again. Authorities demanded Baroshky and Abdulrahman’s personal contact information and requested they comply with any future summons, they said.

In a statement, the Metro Center for Journalists Rights and Advocacy, a local press freedom group, said that Baroshky and Abdulrahman’s detention without a court order violated Kurdistan’s press law.

Baroshky was previously arrested in September 2020 and was imprisoned until February 2022 in retaliation for his posts on social media.

CPJ called Duhok Asayish Director Zeravan Baroshky for comment, but did not receive any reply.

In Erbil, Mustafa told CPJ that he was filming a show about Ramadan when “I was unexpectedly attacked by two unknown civilians.” The men punched Mustafa in the face and knocked him to the ground.

“The attack happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to react or even see the person coming towards me,” Mustafa said. “Within seconds, someone else attacked me from behind and snapped my neck down, they continued punching me without telling me why they were doing so.”

Khabati told CPJ that one of the assailants punched him in the head as well, and that he tried to film the attack but was unable to do so. Mustafa told CPJ that he had filed a lawsuit against the unknown assailant.

Photos and videos reviewed by CPJ show scratches on Musfata’s neck and face, and rips to his clothing.

KNN TV, the broadcast arm of the Kurdish News Network, is affiliated to the Change Movement political party.

CPJ called Erbil Asayish spokesperson Ashti Majeed for comment on the status of the investigation into the attack but did not receive any reply.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

On Monday, July 18, police arrested Warty, a reporter for the broadcaster KNN TV, while he was on a reporting trip in the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Erbil, according to the journalist and his lawyer, Bashdar Hassan, both of whom spoke to CPJ in phone interviews.

Officers took Warty to a local court, where he was charged with criminal defamation; he was then brought back to the police station and released that evening on a bail of 2 million dinars (US$1,340), according to the journalist and his lawyer.

If convicted of defamation under Article 434 of the Iraqi penal code, he could face up to one year in prison, Hassan said, adding that no court date has been set for his case.

“Iraqi Kurdish authorities must immediately drop all criminal charges against journalist Ayub Ali Warty and cease harassing members of the press for their work,” said CPJ senior researcher Yeganeh Rezaian. “Criminal defamation statutes have no place in an open society, and Iraqi authorities should reform the country’s laws as soon as possible.”

KNN TV, or the Kurdish News Network, is a Kurdistan-based television and online news agency closely affiliated with Kurdistan’s opposition Change (Gorran) Movement party, as CPJ has documented.

Hassan told CPJ that Warty’s detention stemmed from a defamation complaint filed by a local plastic surgeon after the journalist used a YouTube video by that doctor to illustrate his reporting on alleged sexual assaults committed by unrelated doctors. CPJ was unable to find contact information for the surgeon who filed the complaint.

Hassan said that such defamation complaints were “normal and legal,” but that authorities should have accepted the complaint under the country’s Journalistic Law, which allows for defamation cases to be adjudicated without members of the press facing arrest.

Hassan also told CPJ that “we, a team of lawyers, will request the court to change the case into journalism law, otherwise, we will appeal the court’s decision.”

When CPJ called Erbil police spokesperson Hogr Aziz, he refused to comment on the record.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.