A general view of Duhok city (file)
AM:11:01:14/11/2021
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SULAIMANI — In yet another blow to press freedom in the Kurdistan
Region, the offices of Duhok-based Gav News were closed down by the security
forces on Saturday (November 13), according to a local press freedom watchdog.
Head of the Metro Center for Journalists’ Rights and
Advocacy Rahman Ghareeb told NRT on Sunday morning that an employee at the
outlet told them that the local Asayish, which is affiliated with the Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP), came to the offices and forced all of the employees to
leave and then locked the doors.
The Asayish did not provide any written court order or
explanation for why they were closing down the news agency, which has not
posted any new stories on its social media accounts since Friday evening. It
was not immediately clear whether the closure will be permanent.
"This is not something unusual and it does not surprise us,”
Ghareeb, alluding to deteriorating press freedom in the Kurdistan Region and
numerous previous examples where media outlets’ offices were forcibly closed
down without a court order.
"This has happened to NRT many times,” he noted.
NRT’s offices in Duhok were closed down by the security
forces between August 20 and December 24 last year in order to disrupt coverage
of protests. In Erbil, the offices were closed from August 20 to November 14
and the channel’s headquarters in Sulaimani were shuttered from December 7 to
December 19.
"The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan
Democratic Party have agreed to journalists’ rights and rules of regulation,
but they break those rules almost every day,” Ghareeb said.
It was not clear whether the raid and closure of Gav News was
in retaliation for its coverage or due to an internal conflict between members
of the KDP’s leadership.
The outlet is largely focused on the Badinan area of the
Kurdistan Region, which includes parts of Erbil and Duhok governorates, and posts
written stories and videos in the Badini dialect of Kurdish.
Badinan has been ground zero for a crackdown by the KDP on
free expression since 2020, with dozens of activists and journalists arrested for
organizing and covering protests.
Controversially, a number of them have been convicted of
serious national security laws, drawing condemnation from local and foreign human
rights groups and foreign governments.
Dozens of people arrested in the crackdown have languished in
pre-trial detention for more than a year.
The outlet has a reputation for being close to Kurdistan
Region President Nechirvan Barzani’s wing of the KDP, which competes with the
faction associated with his uncle, KDP President Masoud Barzani, and his cousin
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Masrour Barzani.
Media outlets in the Kurdistan Region are often closely associated with specific parties or politicians, with journalists targeted as a part of partisan disagreements.
(NRT Digital Media)