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Iraqi Kurdish journalist in danger after
denouncing corruption
8.7.2010 |
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July
8, 2010
PARIS,
Reporters Without Borders,— “We have guns rather
pens for responding to you,” Shwan Ahmed, a
freelance journalist and writer based in the Kurdish
city of Sulaimaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan region, says
he was told on 5 July.
The clearly-worded warning was prompted by two long
articles he wrote for the Kurdish independent weekly
Awene last month about alleged corruption within
Serdam (http://www.serdam.org/), a publishing house
founded in 1998 by supporters of the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan (PUK), President Jalal Talabani’s
party.
His articles (published
in
the 8 and
15 June issues) described the workings
of a vast system of corruption, nepotism and
embezzlement allegedly created by leading figures
and important members of the company, including
Kurdish writers, poets, novelists, translators and
other intellectuals.
The people criticised in the article and Serdam CEO
Sherko Bekas issued a response, denying all of
Ahmed’s allegations. It was published in the 30 June
issue of Awene. President Talabani’s secretary also
condemned the attacks on Serdam.
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Iraqi Kurdish journalist Shwan Ahmed in danger after
denouncing corruption. Awene Photo |
But Ahmed says he received a threatening phone call
on the evening of 5 July from Ari Rauf, the son of
one of the persons he implicated in his article,
Kurdish poet and novelist Rauf Begard.
A colonel in the PUK security forces, Ari Rauf
reportedly told Ahmed: “Shwan, I am going to kill
you. We will respond with our guns, not with ink.
Watch out, you have been warned. I am going to blow
you apart one of these fine days. There will be so
many bullets your body will be left in pieces. I am
not anyone. I am an old Peshmerga. I will shut you
up for good.”
Ahmed immediately reported the threat to police
headquarters in Sulaimaniyah and requested police
protection.
“I just wrote about corruption in these articles,”
Ahmed told Reporters Without Borders. “I based
myself on two reports issued by the Council of
Observation of the autonomous Kurdistan region of
Iraq and other public documents about corruption
within the publishing house. Everyone knows about
it. It is my duty as a freelance journalist to write
about such matters. If we don’t, it means we approve
of the system and we are corrupt ourselves.”
Ahmed is known and respected in Iraqi Kurdistan as a
journalist specialising in matters relating to
political Islam and as a critic of Iraqi Kurdistan’s
political system.
Two journalists in Kurdistan have already paid with
the lives for being outspoken. They are Soran Mama
Hama, who was gunned down on 22 July 2008 (http://en.rsf.org/iraq-journalist-gunned-down-in-kirkuk-22-07-2008,27900.html),
and Sardasht Osman,www.ekurd.netwhose
body was found on 6 May of this year, two days after
he was abducted (http://en.rsf.org/irak-second-journalist-killed-in-iraqi-06-05-2010,37397.html).
Reporters Without Borders urges the authorities in
Iraqi Kurdistan to do everything possible to
guarantee Ahmed’s safety and to defuse the climate
of tension in which independent journalists work.
The press freedom organisation is planning to
conduct a fact-finding visit to Iraqi Kurdistan from
19 to 28 July in which it will meet journalists and
the representatives of journalists’ organisation. It
also hopes to meet members of the Kurdistan regional
government in order to express its concern about the
deterioration in the press freedom situation and
about the safety of journalists.
Copyright, respective
author or news agency, rsf org
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