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The press and political processes in
contemporary Iraqi Kurdistan: Final Report
26.9.2013
John Hogan and John Trumpbour - Ekurd.net |
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September 26, 2013
Introduction
This is the Final Report of the research project
into The Press and Political Processes in
Contemporary Iraqi Kurdistan, led by Dr. John Hogan
and Dr. John Trumpbour. The project has been
supported by the Kurdistan Regional Government and
Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani in particular.
1.1 Research Aims and
Purposes:
In embarking upon this research project, the aims
and purposes were as follows:
a. To investigate the performance of the press and
its relationship with other actors within the
political process responsible for the dissemination
and processing of information and debate.
b. To evaluate government press practices, public
accountability and civic responsibility in
contemporary Iraqi Kurdistan.
c. To investigate how the role and performance of
the press in contemporary Iraqi Kurdistan is
understood by the main stake-holders within society
and polity.
d. To compare the practices, development and
understandings of the press environment in Iraqi
Kurdistan with environments in different national
settings.
e. To build on this data to provide:
i) Vital research evidence about the quality of
press coverage and its contribution to democratic
discourse in contemporary Iraqi Kurdistan.
ii) An action plan based on good practice for the
benefit of the Kurdistan Regional Government, policy
makers, educators and press representatives to
strengthen the democratic role of the press in Iraqi
Kurdistan.
iii) Suggestions, where and if appropriate, for
reforms and initiatives in the fields of public
policy, law and regulation to strengthen the role of
the Press in promoting democracy in Iraqi Kurdistan.
iv) To be a catalyst for an ongoing public debate
about the role of the print media in society and the
limits and possibilities of legitimate journalism
for the functioning of the nation and democratic
representation in Iraqi Kurdistan.
1.2 Iraqi Kurdistan Region:
Iraqi Kurdistan Region is made up of three
governorates: Erbil, Sulaimaniyah and Duhok.
Kurdistan Region is part of the federal State of
Iraq, enjoying -of Iraq recognises the Kurdistan
Region Presidency, the Kurdistan Regional recognizes
the Peshmerga as the legitimate military force of
the Region. With its own parliament, President and
government, a standing army,www.ekurd.net
along with diplomatic missions and the reception of
the President and Prime Minister by their
counter-parts in the major capitals of the world,
the Region has many of the hallmarks of an
independent state. Iraqi Kurdistan borders Syria to
the West, Iran to the East, and Turkey to the North.
The area is estimated at 40,643 square kilometres
with a rapidly increasing population of around 4
million. However, Kurdistan Region also lays claim
to territories beyond its immediate jurisdiction in
Iraq, under the terms of We might add that Kurdistan
Region is not just a territorial entity, but also
the homeland of the diaspora, the many Kurds who
were forced to flee in the past and who have yet to
return.
1.3 Background history:
The Yezidi that stretches way beyond the confines of
the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. It is a land that ranges
over approximately 200,000 square miles, taking in
parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and the former
Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Although
united by the common language of Kurdish and with
tribal and familial ties that straddle the borders
imposed, there are different dialects spoken and
written, most notably Sorani and Kermanji. Until the
end of the First World War, Kurdistan was divided
between the Ottoman and Safavid empires, which,
according to the Zuhab Treaty in 1639, divided East
from West along the Zagros Mountains. At the end of
the First World War, The Treaty of Sevres proposed a
division of the Ottoman Empire and its territory so
as to include amongst other things an autonomous
homeland for the Kurds. This treaty, however, was
ultimately superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne in
1923. Thereafter, Kurdistan was divided between
Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq. Since then, Kurds have
been involved in a number of military struggles
against the nation-states Powers.
Since the establishment of the Iraqi state in 1923,
the Kurds have fought against different Iraqi
regimes, taking up arms and forced to seek refuge in
the mountains.
During this period, there were ceasefires,
negotiations and unfulfilled promises by Iraqi
governments followed by the resumption of military
hostilities. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)
was founded in 1946 under the leadership of General
Mullah Mustafa Barzani, taking up the leadership of
the Kurdish nationalist movement in Iraq. His son,
Massoud Barzani, is now leader of the party and is
the current President of Iraqi Kurdistan Region. In
1975, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) was
established, led by current Iraqi President, Jalal
Talabani.
The Kurds of Iraq were presented with the most
destructive and violent foe with the -2003). In the
late 1960s, the KDP failed to fulfil the demands for
autonomy by the Kurds, who insisted on the inclusion
of Kirkuk and Mosul into an autonomous Kurdistan.
Military resistance resumed. The Baathists combined
military warfare with a policy of Arabization, the
systematic redrawing of the ethnic map through
moving peoples and populating Kurdish areas
with Arabs, a policy that was pursued right up until
the fall of the regime in 2003. repression, where
freedom of expression was suicidal. In his book, : A
childhood in Kurdistan, the acclaimed film director
Hiner Saleem tells his story and pronounced so much
as one word that displeased the government, he would
5. In the 1980s, during and after the Iraq-Iran war,
the Iraqi regime launched several military campaigns
against Kurdish combatants and civilians in Iraq.
The most notorious operation, named Anfal, took
place in the spring and summer of 1988. The campaign
included a series of military offensives. Thousands
of villages were destroyed. The most notorious
episode occurred with the use of chemical weapons on
the people of Halabja. A large number of villagers
who survived deportation, imprisonment and mass
murder, were put together in concentration camps
called . Throughout the Anfal, approximately 200,000
Kurds were murdered or disappeared. Recent research
suggests that during the Anfal a...
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Notes on Authors
Dr Hogan is a Wertheim Fellow at the Labor and
Worklife Program in the Law School at Harvard
University. His primary area of research focuses
upon the implications of new media for the politics
and processes of organization. His work is published
and cited within the fields of history, industrial
relations, organization theory, geography, political
science and sociology.
Dr Trumpbour is located at Harvard Law School, where
he is Research Director for the Labor and Worklife
Program. As a historian, trained first at Stanford
University and then Harvard University where he
gained his doctorate, Trumpbour is recognized as a
prize-winning scholar with a global reach. His
expertise ranges across a number of issues, such as
US foreign policy and global media culture, the
banking and pharmaceutical industries of India and
China, the politics and society of France and
Germany, globalization, technologies of innovation,
theories of communication, migration, governance,
labor, and the politics and social structure of
southern Europe. He is a frequent contributor to
public debate, authoring and contributing to
articles that appear in national and international
news periodicals, including Magazine, The Nation,
and New York Times.
This report submitted to Ekurd.net by Dr John
Hogan, Wertheim Fellow, Harvard Law School.
Copyright © 2013 Ekurd.net, respective author or
news agency
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