Iraqi Kurdistan court sentences Syrian journalist to 3 years

“CPJ is alarmed by the sentencing of Syrian journalist Sleman Ahmed, who has been detained for nine months,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s interim MENA program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “We urge Iraqi Kurdistan authorities to release him without further delay and stop persecuting journalists for their work.”

Authorities charged Ahmed with espionage on behalf of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), according to Ramazan Tartisi, one of Ahmed’s lawyers, who spoke to CPJ. Tartisi and Luqman Ahmed, another member of the legal team who has no relation to the journalist, told CPJ that the journalist denied the charges and plans to appeal. 

The separatist PKK is designated a terrorist organization by several countries and institutions, including the U.S., Turkey, and the European Union. Iraq officially banned the group last week. 

Ahmed is the Arabic editor for the local news website RojNews, based in Sulaymaniyah, a city in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region. RojNews is pro-PKK and regularly reports on the organization’s activities. 

The charges were “merely a means to retaliate against the journalist,” Luqman Ahmed told CPJ, saying that the court had no evidence for the conviction and the legal process was “very unfair,” adding that the lawyers were only allowed to attend the trial after pressure from the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq and foreign consulates.

Iraqi Kurdish authorities arrested Ahmed on October 25, 2023, when he re-entered Kurdistan after a family visit in Syria. The Security Directorate (Asayish), responsible for border security in Duhok Governorate, accused him of conducting “secret and illegal” work for the PKK.

CPJ’s call to Duhok Asayish Director Zeravan Baroshky for comment did not receive any reply.