Kurdistan party says it will drop media lawsuits

Iraq's KDP 'to withdraw all lawsuits and complaints registered against newspapers and writers'.

Middle East Online

By Abdul Hamid Zebari - ARBIL, Iraq

'We hope to see responsible work' A top official from one of the two main parties in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region said on Monday that the party has decided to withdraw all lawsuits it had filed against journalists. "As a goodwill gesture, we announce that we have decided to withdraw all lawsuits and complaints registered against newspapers and writers," Najirvan Barzani, deputy head of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) said at a news conference. "We hope to see responsible work" from Kurdistan's journalists, said Barzani, nephew of the region's president. Media rights groups and editors of Kurdistan publications had said that newspapers and journalists in the region had been hit by a barrage of lawsuits from political parties and politicians, especially from the KDP. "In recent months more and more lawsuits have been brought against the Kurdish media," watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a report on its website titled "Iraqi Kurdistan: Lawsuits raining down on news media." "Newspaper editors nowadays seem to be spending their time in the corridors outside courtrooms," RSF said. Editors said that dozens of lawsuits were filed by various political parties in 2010 over articles published in independent Kurdistan periodicals. Rahman Ghareeb, director of the Metro Centre to Defend Journalists, had described the slew of lawsuits as "an attempt to crack down on press freedom and intimidate journalists and confuse their daily work." According to RSF, one lawsuit filed by the KDP against magazine Rojname sought one billion dollars in damages. The lawsuit was over an article that "accused the KDP and its ruling coalition partner, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), of helping to smuggle refined petroleum products into Iran in violation of the international sanctions," RSF said. When previously asked about the lawsuits, the KDP said it was merely defending itself. "The reason for the KDP resorting to filing a large number of lawsuits against journalists is... self-defence," Ari Harseen of the party's media office said. Besides lawsuits, journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan have also faced other hazards. Last May, 22-year-old journalist Sardasht Osman was found dead with a single bullet to the head a day after he was kidnapped. Osman had written scathing articles about the alleged corruption of Kurdish leaders, especially president Massud Barzani. An official probe that claimed Osman was in fact a member of a militant group was slammed by press groups and his family, who said they were convinced the reporter was killed because of his work.