Erbil court sentenced five activists to two years in prison.

Erbil court sentenced five activists to two years in prison.

kurdsatnews

May 16, 2022

Erbil appeal court.

Bashdar Hassan, head of the lawyers of the Badinan detainees, said that they had been detained by the KDP security, Asaysh, for seventeen months.

KurdSat News correspondent in Erbil said, 'the detainees were given conditional discharge sentence and will be released after 37 days as they have served 17 months in the prisons of Asaysh.'

In the past few years, more than 70 activists and journalists have been detained by Erbil Security forces charged with undermining the security of the Kurdistan region. Some were convicted for writing a comment on social media that went against KDP beliefs.

Some of the detainees were charged with forming relations with consulates in Erbil. In 2021, five of the detainees were sentenced to six years in prison. In addition, the court officially indicted them with espionage in the pay of Erbil's American and German consulates. The respective states asked the Erbil to respect their diplomatic missions in the region and condemned the court's decision.

MP, activists, journalists, and relatives of the convicted gathered in Front of the Erbil appeal court. Karwan Gaznaee, a law-maker of the Kurdistan region parliament, said, 'if authority [ Erbil] is afraid of a comment from an activist from Shiladzeh, then disaster awaits it.'

Civil rights activists declared the court ruling baseless and called the convicted innocent and their cases politically motivated.

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