“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.

The team, which consisted of Ahmed and two camera operators, Hevi Khalid and Bawar Rafiq, traveled to the border town of Tawella to report on cross-border smuggling with Iran, according to that report, which said the team had received permission to report from the Iraqi Kurdish Asayish intelligence agency and was accompanied by an Asayish agent at the time they were detained.

While they were filming, an armed masked man in civilian clothes shouted at the crew to stop recording and pointed a gun at Ahmed and Khalid, Ahmed told CPJ. Minutes later, four or five additional armed men arrived at the scene, followed by an Iraqi border guard vehicle, Ahmed said. The border authorities detained the crew and the Asayish agent and took them to the border control headquarters in Byara district.

“They investigated us, asked why we are doing the report, and searched our cameras,” Ahmed said, adding that the border guards “emphasized” that the crew should not report on kolbars, or laborers who transport goods across borders.

Khalid told CPJ via phone that the crew had recorded some footage but hid those recordings from the border guards by swapping out their cameras’ memory cards with spare ones. When the guards asked them to erase any recordings, the crew showed them the empty memory cards.

The team was released after the intervention of the Halabja governor, the mayor of the city of Halabja, and a member of a local press freedom group, according to Ahmed.

Khalid told CPJ that the border guards asked the team to sign a pledge not to report from that area in the future, but they refused.

Ibrahim Muhammed, regiment commander of the second battalion of the Iraqi border guards, told CPJ via phone that the team was required to coordinate with the border authorities and not the Asayish to report from that area.

“Any media coverage at borderlines is forbidden, unless they get a formal permission letter from our main headquarter in Sulaymaniyah,” he said.

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

On Thursday, August 25, authorities at the Sabiha Gökçen Airport in Istanbul detained Areteos, a reporter for the Greek newspaper Real and author of two books on Turkish politics, after he arrived in the country from Brussels, according to the journalist, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app, posted a statement online, and recounted the incident in an interview with Real’s affiliated radio station.

Authorities held Areteos for about seven hours and gave him a document saying he was barred from entering Turkey “for reasons of public order,” but did not give a specific reason for the denial, according to those sources. The journalist wrote in his statement that he had reported on Turkey for 23 years and was accredited to work as a foreign correspondent in Turkey, and that he believed the denial was retaliation for his work.

Areteos said in that interview that he was put back on a plane to Brussels; he said his denial was not an official ruling that could be appealed.

“Greek journalist Evangelos Areteos’ long history working in Turkey should not come to an unceremonious end due to authorities’ disapproval of his work,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director, in New York. “Authorities must allow Areteos to return to Turkey, where he should be able to report freely and without fear of retaliation.”

Areteos wrote in his statement that, during his detention, authorities questioned him about a visit he made to northern Syria in 2015 and his travels throughout Turkey; he wrote that he believed those travels were the reason he was denied entry into the country.

The journalist’s recent work included reporting from southeastern Turkey, where he interviewed local people about life, culture, and politics, including the contentious status of Kurds in Turkey. He told CPJ that he reported daily on social and political developments in the Kurdish region of Syria.

He added in his statement that authorities also asked him about contacts on his phone related to Kurds in northeastern Syria, which he said were part of his reporting.

CPJ emailed Turkey’s Interior Ministry for comment, but did not receive any reply.

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

At about noon on Tuesday, August 2, forces affiliated with the Democratic Union Party, the political party in power in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, detained Ferman, a reporter for Rudaw TV, in the city of Qamishli according to a report by his employer and the journalist’s sister, Hamalin Ferman, who spoke to CPJ in a phone interview.

Hamalin Ferman told CPJ that authorities had not disclosed where the journalist was being held or the reason for his arrest.

“Authorities in northern Syria must immediately release journalist Barzan Ferman, or disclose his location and the reason for his arrest,” said CPJ Senior Researcher Yeganeh Rezaian. “The Democratic Union Party must halt its censorship efforts against the Rudaw network and allow the broadcaster to work freely and safely.”

Hamalin Ferman told CPJ that her brother was at Rudaw’s office in Qamishli when three masked security officers, one of whom carried a gun, detained him and took him away in a white van. She said the journalist’s family asked local officials and security forces about his status but had not received any responses.

When CPJ contacted Abdullah Sa’dun, a spokesperson of Asayish intelligence agency, the region’s main law enforcement body, via messaging app, he said that he had already spoken with the journalist’s family and would not comment further.

On February 5, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria announced that it was suspending the Rudaw Media Network’s license and the licenses of its employees, claiming the network spread “hate and misinformation.” Ferman had continued working since that suspension, and was detained while helping two colleagues clean and arrange the shuttered office, his sister said.

Hamalin Ferman told CPJ that the journalist’s family was not aware of any threats against the journalist, but added, “maybe he kept it secret.”

Rudaw is affiliated with the Iraqi Kurdistan regional government and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in northern Iraq, and its main office is based in the Iraqi Kurdish capital city of Erbil; it is funded by Nechrivan Barzani, the deputy president of the KDP and the president of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, according to CPJ research.

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

The investigation, “The Assassination of Sardasht Osman: Debunking the Official Story”, is the fifth in a series of investigations to push for local justice as part of the A Safer World for the Truth initiative, a project by leading press freedom organisations Free Press Unlimited, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The group’s analysis of the “official investigation” revealed significant gaps and irregularities, including a failure to interview family members and friends. Instead they were threatened to remain silent and support the official storyline.

Iraq currently ranks 172nd out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index. All the killers of murdered journalists in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq have operated with impunity, according to CPJ’s 2021 Global Impunity Index where Iraq is ranked third.

The murdered journalist, Sardasht Osman, worked in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and wrote about corruption and nepotism. In December 2009, he wrote a satirical article, ‘I am in love with Barzani’s daughter’, in which he juxtaposed the luxurious lifestyle of President Massoud Barzani’s family with the hardships of average Kurdish citizens. Shortly after, he started receiving death threats.

Inconsistencies in the official storyline are most pronounced with regards to: the kidnapping of Sardasht, transporting Sardasht (or his body) from Erbil to Mosul, the official autopsy report, the allegation that the perpetrators were from the Ansar al-Islam terrorist group, and the alleged motive for his assassination, the A Safer World For The Truth investigation found.

“There are always people who don’t want to listen when you start telling the truth, who get furious at the slightest whisper. To stay alive though, we must tell the truth.

I will continue to write until the last minute of my life.”

-Sardasht’s personal response to threats prior to his assassination.

The case of Sardasht is illustrative of the fate of many young, critical journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan, including: Asos Hardi, Kawa Garmyani, Wedad Hussein and Soran Mama Hama. Since Sarshadt’s murder, at least 22 journalists have been killed in Iraq in connection to their work, eight of whom were killed in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Furthermore, journalists like Sardasht who work in places with limited press freedom are often forced to self-censor to avoid crossing certain red lines that can trigger violence by authorities. Threats and attacks against these journalists are rarely investigated promptly, effectively and thoroughly..

In light of these findings, A Safer World for the Truth has published a series of concrete recommendations to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and to the international community:

First, Kurdish authorities must immediately end all harassment, intimidation, and threats against Sardasht’s family members and friends and initiate a transparent and impartial reinvestigation of the case of Sardasht Osman.

Second, advocates, particularly those with diplomatic and economic relations to the KRG, should exert continuous pressure on Kurdish authorities to investigate threats against and murders of journalists according to international standards.

Third, States should impose targeted sanctions on KRG officials and authorities for preventing prompt, effective, thorough, impartial and transparent investigations into crimes against journalists.

Finally, supporters of press freedom should join us in calling on the Kurdish authorities to develop a formal independent safety mechanism tasked with monitoring and acting on threats and attacks against journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan. By providing journalists and media workers with effective protective and preventive measures, we can begin to break the cycle of impunity.

Jules Swinkels, Lead Researcher for this investigation, Free Press Unlimited (FPU), states:

“The case of Sardasht is emblematic of what can happen when journalists push the boundaries of their confined freedom of expression. Sardasht wrote satirically about Kurdistan’s most powerful individuals, and was kidnapped and assassinated because of it. Tragically, his case demonstrates that a complete lack of political will to investigate and solve murders of journalists domestically, is one of the main reasons for impunity. The recommendations in this report provide a pathway to let justice prevail in cases of murdered journalists.”

Yeganeh Rezaian, Senior Researcher, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), states:

“Reporters must be able to speak truth to power, uncover corruption, hold the powerful to account, and yes, satirize public figures without fear of intimidation, violence, and death. And when authorities pursue an agenda of persecution against journalists and tolerate impunity for their assailants, it is imperative they not be allowed to evade justice and prolong a campaign of violent censorship. This report offers a clear roadmap for how to address the case of Sardasht and ensure greater transparency and accountability for cases in the future.”

Sabrina Bennoui, Middle East Director, Reporters without Borders (RSF), states:

“Twelve years after the assassination of Sardasht Osman, the authorities still stick to their official version – which the journalist’s entourage has never believed in, regarding his writings critical of the government. The investigation was as opaque as it was expeditious and it is clear that it did not reveal the truth about the perpetrators and their real motives.”

Previous investigations and recommendations can be found here.

The full investigation, in English, Kurdish, and Arabic, can be downloaded here.

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

Since July 16, unidentified attackers and Syrian Kurdish security forces have attacked and detained at least five members of the press throughout areas in northern Syria controlled by groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and at least two journalists remain in detention, according to news reports and posts on social media by those journalists and their families.

“The recent string of attacks on journalists in northern Syria shows that members of the press are not safe anywhere in the country,” said CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa representative, Ignacio Miguel Delgado. “All parties in northern Syria must do everything in their power to ensure the safety of journalists and allow them to do their jobs freely and without fear of reprisal, and must release any journalists still in custody at once.”

On July 16, two masked men in the northwestern city of Azaz stabbed and robbed cartoonist Hadeel Ismael, who works for the news website Syrian Press Center, according to news reports and Mohammad Ismael, a communication officer with the press center, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app and email.

The attackers stabbed Ismael in the back and stole her purse shortly after she received a wire transfer of 15,000 Turkish lira (US $1,750) at a post office in Azaz, according to those sources. Mohammad Ismael told CPJ that the cartoonist was taken to the National Hospital in Azaz, where she was given 10 stitches and then released.

Previously, on June 19, an unidentified person driving a car with tinted windows and no license plates chased Hadeel Ismael down a street in Azaz, called her by name, threatened to kill her, and told her to stop drawing cartoons of Nasr al-Hariri, the former head of the Syrian opposition coalition, Mohammad Ismael said.

Mohammad Ismael added that local authorities have stalled in their investigations into the stabbing attack on the cartoonist, which he said he believed was retaliation for her work and not a simple robbery, citing the previous threats she had received.

Azaz is under the control of the Turkish-backed National Syrian Army, according to news reports.

Separately, on July 17, Syrian Kurdish Asayish security forces near the northeastern town of Rmelan arrested Barzan Hussein Liyani, a reporter for the broadcaster Ark TV, according to news reports and reports by the Skeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom and the Syrian Journalists’ Association. 

Liyani’s brother, Gulal, wrote on his Facebook account that Asayish security forces raided the journalist’s home at 2 a.m. and brutally arrested him. Agents took Liyani to an undisclosed location, seized his phone, and have not informed his family of his whereabouts or the reason for his arrest, according to a statement by the London-based human rights organization Syrian Network for Human Rights.

Gulal Liyani told CPJ via messaging app that local authorities have refused to give the family any information about Liyani’s whereabouts or the charges against him.

Liyani recently covered power cuts in rural areas, drought, and the positive economic impact of remittances in northeastern Syria for ARK TV, a broadcaster affiliated with the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (KDP), which is based in Iraqi Kurdistan and rules the autonomous region. Liyani was previously arrested by Asayish security forces in May 2017 and held in jail for several months, CPJ documented at the time. 

Also on July 17, members of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces arrested Ezzedinne al-Mala, a reporter and columnist for the newspaper and news website Kurdistan, in front of his home in Qamishli, according to a statement by the Syrian Network for Human Rights and those reports by Skeyes and the journalists’ association.

The statement added that his family was not aware of the reasons for his arrest or his whereabouts, and said his cell phone had been seized.

Al-Mala works as an editor for Kurdistan, and has recently written columns calling for the resumption of talks between Kurdish parties, praising regional leader Mustafa Barzani, and interviewing members of the opposition Kurdish National Council.

According to news reports, both Liyani and al-Mala are members of the Democratic Party of Kurdistan-Syria, a member of the Kurdish National Council, an opposition party in the autonomous region of northeast Syria.

On July 18, reporter Qusay al-Ahmad and camera operator Mohanad al-Ahmad, both with the Qatari broadcaster Al-Jazeera Mubasher, survived a car bomb attack in the northwestern city of Afrin, according to news reports and pictures of the charred car shared on social media.

Qusay al-Ahmad wrote on his Facebook page that he and Mohanad, his brother, were about 20 meters away from their car and were planning to travel to interview internally displaced Syrians during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha when the vehicle exploded. He wrote that the explosion completely destroyed the car and injured his brother’s ear.

In the days before the attack, Qusay al-Ahmad had covered the construction of a housing project in the town of Sawran and school exams in Afrin that took place amid COVID-19.

According to the news website Damascus Countryside Reporters’ Network, al-Ahmad survived an assassination attempt in February 2020, when unknown people plated a hand grenade under his car.

Areas under the control of the National Syrian Army, including Afrin, have seen several recent car bomb attacks and assassinations of military and police officers affiliated with the opposition Syrian Interim Government, according to reports.

In an email to CPJ, the Syrian Democratic Forces’ Office for Media and Information said that any legal action concerning civilians in northeast Syria falls under the responsibility of Internal Security Forces (Asayish) and the SDF did not have the authority to take legal action against civilians.

CPJ emailed the Asayish and the Syrian Interim Government’s media office for comment, but did not immediately receive any replies.

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