The Badinan prisoners are waiting for a court appeal that could potentially guarantee their freedom.
For more than six months, dozens of journalists and civil rights activists from the Badinan region of Iraqi Kurdistan were imprisoned because they criticized corruption in the region’s political parties and participated in nonviolent protests. On February 16, the Criminal court in Erbil sentenced five of the Badinan activists and journalists Sherwan Sherwani, Ayaz Karam, Guhdar Zebari, Shivan Saeed, and Hariwan Issa to six years of prison for alleged espionage and sabotage without sufficient evidence and due process.
In a press conference before the Badinan prisoners’ court trial, Prime Minister Masrour Barzani declared the Badinan prisoners that they were “neither activists nor journalists.” He even accused them of being saboteurs and spying for other countries.
The unjust sentencing that CPT observed creates a dangerous precedent that puts journalists and civil society initiatives in Iraqi Kurdistan at risk.
Read our report.