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Washington, D.C., July 19, 2022 – Iraqi Kurdish authorities ought to instantly drop all expenses in opposition to journalist Ayub Ali Warty, guarantee he can work freely, and Iraqi authorities ought to reform the nation’s legal guidelines to decriminalize defamation, the Committee to Defend Journalists mentioned Tuesday.
On Monday, July 18, police arrested Warty, a reporter for the broadcaster KNN TV, whereas he was on a reporting journey within the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Erbil, in accordance with the journalist and his lawyer, Bashdar Hassan, each of whom spoke to CPJ in telephone interviews.
Officers took Warty to an area court docket, the place he was charged with felony defamation; he was then introduced again to the police station and launched that night on a bail of two million dinars (US$1,340), in accordance with the journalist and his lawyer.
If convicted of defamation below Article 434 of the Iraqi penal code, he may resist one yr in jail, Hassan mentioned, including that no court docket date has been set for his case.
“Iraqi Kurdish authorities should instantly drop all felony expenses in opposition to journalist Ayub Ali Warty and stop harassing members of the press for his or her work,” mentioned CPJ senior researcher Yeganeh Rezaian. “Prison defamation statutes don’t have any place in an open society, and Iraqi authorities ought to reform the nation’s legal guidelines as quickly as attainable.”
KNN TV, or the Kurdish Information Community, is a Kurdistan-based tv and on-line information company carefully affiliated with Kurdistan’s opposition Change (Gorran) Motion celebration, as CPJ has documented.
Hassan instructed CPJ that Warty’s detention stemmed from a defamation criticism filed by an area plastic surgeon after the journalist used a YouTube video by that physician for example his reporting on alleged sexual assaults dedicated by unrelated docs. CPJ was unable to seek out contact info for the surgeon who filed the criticism.
Hassan mentioned that such defamation complaints have been “regular and authorized,” however that authorities ought to have accepted the criticism below the nation’s Journalistic Legislation, which permits for defamation instances to be adjudicated with out members of the press dealing with arrest.
Hassan additionally instructed CPJ that “we, a workforce of legal professionals, will request the court docket to alter the case into journalism regulation, in any other case, we are going to enchantment the court docket’s resolution.”
When CPJ known as Erbil police spokesperson Hogr Aziz, he refused to touch upon the file.
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