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Syrian Kurdish Journalist Threatened by
PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan
15.6.2012
Reporters Without Borders |
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June 15, 2012
PARIS, — Reporters Without Borders is very
concerned for the safety of Mohamed Abdu Hamu, an
Iraqi Kurdistan-based Syrian Kurdish journalist
better known as Biradost Azizi, who says he is being
threatened by Turkey’s armed separatist Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) and its Syrian offshoot, the
Democratic Union Party (PYD).
Azizi is from the Kurdish city Qamishli in
northeastern Syria (Syrian Kurdistan), but has been
a refugee in Iraqi Kurdistan ever since his
expulsion from Syria in 2004.
“We call on the authorities in Iraq’s autonomous
Kurdistan region to investigate what has taken place
and to do whatever is necessary to guarantee Azizi’s
safety,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We also
call on the PKK to openly condemn the threats
against this journalist and last week’s attempt to
murder him.”
Azizi, who did a lot of stories for the Iraqi
Kurdish TV station KNN and Radio Nawa last year
about the Syrian uprising in general and the role of
Syria’s Kurds in the uprising, told Reporters
Without Borders he has received repeated telephone
threats for the past seven months.
A supporter of the Syrian uprising and the
revolutionary movement in Syria’s Kurdish regions,
he has done many reports critical of the PYD’s
militia. In early 2012, he co-signed statements and
communiqués by Kurdish intellectuals and activists
accusing the PKK of atrocities in the Kurdish part
of Syria. His signature appeared at the foot of a
statement condemning the murders of three members of
the same family in Qamishli on 10 January : http://www.welateme.info/erebi/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=11333.
On 7 February, he said that the atrocities that took
place in Afrin after a peaceful street demonstration
there on 3 February by Syria’s Kurdistan National
Council and the Youth of the Revolution were the
work of the PYD,www.ekurd.net
with help from the Syrian intelligence services.
He conducted an interview with PYD leader Saleh
Muslim on 8 May in which Muslim said the
anti-government demonstrations in Qamishli were
being manipulated by Salafists and Islamists, in
effect taking the same position as President Bashar
Al-Assad’s government.
A campaign to smear Azizi was launched on Facebook
after this interview was broadcast. Death threats
began being made against him, especially after an
article was posted on the BBC’s Farsi-language
website in which a journalist quoted his statements
about the situation of the Kurds in Syria and the
PKK’s role.
Azizi posted a “Statement for Syrian and Kurdish
public opinion before my liquidation” on 15 May in
which said he was being threatened by the PKK and
its branch in Syria and named the people he thought
would be responsible if he were liquidated.
A defamation suit that was brought against him in
Iraqi Kurdistan began being heard before a court in
Sulaimaniyah on 10 June. He narrowly escaped a
murder attempt as he was returning home on the eve
of this hearing. He told Reporters Without Borders
he thought it was prompted by his journalistic
activities and his criticism of the Assad regime in
Syria.
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