Activist Badal Barwari and journalist Omed Baroshki. (file)
PM:06:24:14/09/2021
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SULAIMANI — Head of the defense team for detained activist
Badal Barwari and journalist Omed Baroshki told NRT on Tuesday (September 14)
that their trial will take place on Wednesday, after repeated procedural delays
have kept the two men in prison for more than a year without facing the main
charges against them.
Lawyer Bashdar Hassan said that the defense team hopes that
the pair will be found not guilty because there is no evidence to support the
charges against them. Using a serious national security statute, prosecutors
allege that they tried to undermine the security and unity of the state.
Their trial comes amid renewed scrutiny of the Kurdistan
Regional Government’s (KRG) treatment of dozens of detainees who were arrested
last summer and autumn by security forces affiliated with the Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP) to crack down on protests about the government’s
economic policies.
Multiple sources told NRT and human rights watchdogs that at
least 81 detainees were on hunger strike at Erbil General Asayish Prison.
Decisions earlier this year to convict and then reject the
appeals of five journalists and activists in the crackdown crystalized a
growing body of evidence that the KRG is undergoing an authoritarian turn.
Eleven others, including Barwari and Baroshki, have had
hearings and trials repeatedly postponed, which allows the government to
continue to imprison them without testing its case against them in court and
denying their legal rights.
Barwari and Baroshki were due to stand trial on July 29 and
again on September 6, but the hearings were postponed.
Separately, Baroshki was sentenced on June 23 to a year in
jail and payment of a fine on three charges of violating Article 2 of the
Communication Devices Misuse Law.
Foreign and local watchdogs have expressed alarm about the
deterioration of freedom of the press and expression in the Kurdistan Region
since Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, who is a senior KDP official, took office
in July 2019.
(NRT Digital Media)