Iraq

The border cuts right through our ancestral land in Zagros. It has given us division, landmines, wars, among other atrocities. It has made us Iraqis on one side and Iranians on the other. Even the minerals, the other than human populations of trees, rivers and lakes have been divided that way. There are rivers whose source they claim to be Iranian and whose waters downstream to be Iraqi. So absurd and totalist is that border.

REPORT | On 16 February 2021, the Criminal Court of the First Instance in Erbil found five freelance journalists and civil rights activists guilty of “espionage” and “conspiracy to commit acts that destabilize national security and stability” under Article 1 of Iraqi Kurdistan’s Parliamentary Law No. 21 of 2003. Journalists Sherwan Sherwani, Eyaz Karam and Guhdar Zebari and activists Shivan Saeed and Hariwan Essa were each sentenced to six-year prison terms.

Today we pray that the new year brings the changes that CPT's partners in Iraqi Kurdistan desire and hope for so much: life without the threat of bombardment and freedom without fear to stand up against oppression. 

Please pray today for an end to escalating hostilities between the Iraqi Kurdistan government and guerrilla forces and for the safety of CPT's partners caught in-between.  

On 7 October 2020, an armed and unidentified group abducted Sherwan Sherwani in his home. Since he was abducted, Sherwani’s family has yet to receive any information on his location.

On 20 August 2020, Turkish soldiers from one of their military bases in Gar and Xalat opened fire on Shapan village in the sub-district of Mergasor, located in the Iraqi Kurdistan region. As a result, 33-year-old Nawzad Rasheed was wounded from the gunfire.

In November 2019, Niyaz Abdullah organized a gathering of Kurdish journalists promoting freedom of the press. The journalists present acknowledged experiencing political oppression for seeking to tell the truth. They called for an end to the government's distortion of the law that allows it to threaten journalists and undermine press freedom. "We are strong," Niyaz Abdullah said, "but we need to be stronger. And we are much stronger together."

CPT calls on the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to protect citizens’ rights to safety, access to a fair trial, and protection from coercion and ill-treatment in detention in Iraqi Kurdistan. CPT also calls upon the United Nations, NATO, and the international community to pressure the Turkish government to respect the lives of civilians, cease all military operations inside Iraqi Kurdistan that have continued for more than three decades, and ultimately initiate a peaceful resolution between Turkey and armed groups to solve their long-term conflicts.