Iraq / Middle East & North Africa

Sulaymaniyah, April 28, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned over an arson threat made by the Raba Allah militia against Al Rabiaa TV in Iraq, which led to the deployment of security forces outside its headquarters for one day. On April 24, Raba Allah, which is part of the powerful Iranian-backed militia Kataib…

Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, March 3, 2025—Kurdistan security forces arrested four journalists from the new digital outlet Media21 on February 28 in the eastern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah, confiscating their phones and taking them from their homes. The journalists were identified as Bashdar Bazyani, Dana Salih, Sardasht HamaSalih, and Nabaz Shekhani. Security forces closed the outlet’s office…

Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, February 13, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by Kurdistan security forces’ assault on 12 news crews covering a February 9 protest by teachers and other public employees over unpaid salaries, which resulted in at least 22 journalists teargassed, two arrested, and a television station raided. “The aggressive treatment meted out to…

Sulaymaniyah, January 31, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges Iraqi Kurdish authorities to release journalist Omed Baroshky after the Duhok criminal court on Thursday sentenced him to six months in prison on charges of defamation. Baroshky’s lawyer, Reving Yaseen, told CPJ via messaging app that the charges stem from a January 23, 2024 Facebook post…

Sulaymaniyah, November 8, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for full accountability in the attack on journalist Wrya Abdulkhaliq, who received 21 stitches after two men stabbed his stomach and hit him in the head with the butt of a gun, in his home near Iraqi Kurdistan’s Sulaymaniyah city. “We are appalled by the brutal…

The Committee to Protect Journalists has submitted a report on the state of press freedom and journalist safety in Iraq and semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan to the United Nations Human Rights Council ahead of its January to February 2025 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session. The U.N. mechanism is a peer review of each member state’s human…

Sulaymaniyah, August 23, 2024—A suspected Turkish drone strike killed two journalists and injured another in the Said Sadiq district of Sulaymaniyah province on Friday.  “We are deeply saddened by the tragic August 23 drone strike that killed two journalists and injured a third in Iraqi Kurdistan,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s interim MENA program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Turkish authorities should swiftly…

Sulaymaniyah, August 20, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Iraqi security forces to explain the assault of two TV crews while they were covering protests in separate parts of the country. “CPJ is deeply concerned by the attacks on the Zoom News TV crew in Sulaymaniyah and the Alsumaria TV crew in Baghdad,” said…

Update: Since publication of this alert, the Kurdistan Region Court of Appeals overturned Ahmed’s conviction on January 6, 2025, and ordered his immediate release. Following his release on January 20, Ahmed crossed the Iraqi Kurdistan border into Syria to see his family, according to his lawyers and family. In October 2024, United Nations experts sent…

Sulaymaniyah, July 23, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed that the prominent Turkish Kurdish photojournalist Murat Yazar was held in an Iraqi Kurdish security forces prison for eight days before his release on Sunday evening and calls on Iraqi Kurdish authorities to stop arresting journalists. “Iraqi Kurdish authorities have made a habit out of…