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An Open Letter To:
Dears Mr. Aidan White of International Federation of
Journalists (IFJ),
Mr. Robert Ménard of Reporters Without Borders (RSF),
Ms. Ann K. Cooper of Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ),
Warm Greetings,
I am a Kurdish journalist writing this letter to you to
express my serious concerns over the press law recently
passed by the Kurdistan National Assembly (KNA).
As expected, the KNA finally ratified, on Tuesday Dec. 11, a
controversial and much-protested bill originally drafted by
the Kurdistan Journalists’ Syndicate (KJS). The law, as you
might know, contains some articles and items that are truly
restrictive of journalists’ activity in the Iraqi Kurdistan
Region (IKR). Vague phrases in the law such as “national
security”, “public system” and/or “conventions and
traditions”, “inciting terror and violence” “disrupting
security” “slander, defamation and abuse,” would provide
easy and uncountable excuses and opportunities to those who
want to muzzle and cripple journalists and press in
Kurdistan. In fact, such elastic and indefinable clauses
would potentially lead to shackling the relatively wide, but
increasingly narrowing, margin of freedom of expression that
we rather excitingly believed we had in Kurdistan.
In addition, punitive measures such as closing down media
outlets for months and relatively huge sums of financial
penalty as much as 20,000,000 million Iraqi Dinars (16000
USD) can practically bankrupt a considerable number of those
outlets that are already coping with financial hardships.
The law, as the vast majority of journalists and observers
and civil society activists in IKR believe, is no more than
a hammer held threateningly over journalists' head.
Ironically, at a time when we were expecting a jump in
democratic reforms in Kurdistan after the 2003 US-led war;
to the great astonishment and sorrow of many in Kurdistan
and outside, the Kurdish authorities seem to be working on
developing undemocratic methods of control over society.
They have started from the most basic and fundamental of all
freedoms upon which other freedoms rest: that of freedom of
expression through measures such as this law. This was
especially most unbecoming of parliamentarians who are
elected representatives of people. Nevertheless, one should
not fail to note and appreciate the efforts of a small
number of those lawmakers who were not ready to vote for the
law.
Naturally for a government and parliament laying claims to
democracy and, meantime, having their record of dealing with
journalists and freedom of expression criticized by credible
organizations like the United Nations, they should have
moved in the direction of further liberalizing the laws
regarding press. But what the KNA has done is so
inexplicable that would irreparably tarnish its image inside
Kurdistan and around the world. It is certainly such an
embarrassing situation for the Kurdish Parliament that would
make many seriously doubt the daily rhetorics of lawmakers
and politicians about democracy. If for many regimes in the
Middle East democracy is an unwanted choice, for Kurds it is
a “must.” It is through democracy that Kurds can leave
behind their tragic past and gain international support and
sympathy in a hostile neighborhood such as theirs.
As a Kurdish journalist, I have mixed feelings of sorrow,
shock and shame. Sorrow for the apparently regressive
measures we are taking in the field of democracy, shock for
this unwise move by the KNA, and shame for our political
system to be just about to turn into yet another of the many
totalitarian and repressive political systems in the Middle
East, at a time when our part of the world is so desperately
in need of an example of relative democracy, to say the
least.
Despite all that, the good news still is that the law is not
yet finalized since the President of IKR, Mr. Massoud
Barzani, should officially sign the law to take effect. This
means, there is a chance for the law to be revoked or, at
least, reformed. In order to achieve any of these
objectives, there needs to be a strong protest campaign to
be launched internally and internationally. The aims behind
such a campaign should be, first, to make the Kurdish
authorities realize their lethal and unjustifiable mistake
in this particular case and, secondly, demonstrate that the
civil society movement in Kurdistan, of which journalists
are a crucial pillar, as well as the international
organizations defending press freedom and human rights are
determined not to allow the Kurdish political parties to be
emboldened and go ahead with further similar measures in the
future. Hence, a great responsibility lies with your
organizations to help create extensive pressure on Kurdish
authorities.
The Kurds in Iraq, as a people who have long had their most
basic of human rights and freedoms brutally usurped from
them, do unarguably deserve a better treatment from their
political elites. Kurdistan authorities should recognize
that such moves do only send wrong signals to their people
and the world that they are on the way to reproduce and copy
another version of a repressive political system, this time
of a Kurdish type.
I do urgently call upon your organizations and other groups
concerned with press freedom and human rights to make a
serious and concerted effort in order to urge the KNA and
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to either revoke or
reform the current version of the law. Hopefully, the
authorities in Kurdistan would respond positively to such
demands and reform the document.
Truly Yours,
Mohammed A. Salih, USA, Dec. 13. 2007
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