Published on 13 November 2008
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Reporters Without Borders hails the release today of Shawan Dawodi, the editor of the weekly Hawal, as a result of an appeal court’s decision earlier in the day to overturn the one-month prison sentence he received from a criminal court in the northern city of Sulaymaniyah on 4 November on a defamation charge under the old press law.
The case is now to be retried under the new press law.
Dawodi told Reporters Without Border he was optimistic about the outcome of the case. “I have confidence in the law (...) The court’s decision was a fair one. I am all the more convinced now of the need for a reform of our judicial system.”
10.11.2008
Kurdish newspaper editor gets a month in prison for “defaming” legal system
Reporters Without Borders calls for the release of Shawan Dawodi, the editor of the weekly Hawal, who was sentenced to a month in prison and a fine by a court in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah on 4 November over a series of articles four years ago criticising judicial reform in Iraqi Kurdistan.
“There are no legal grounds for this arbitrary sentence as it is based on a law that has been superseded,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The judges ignored the new press law adopted in September, which eliminates prison sentences for press offences. We therefore call for Dawodi to be released and for his conviction to be quashed.”
Convicted under article 433 of the 1969 criminal code, Dawodi was jailed the same day that the sentence was issued and is currently being held in a “social rehabilitation” centre 15 km west of Sulaymaniyah.
The case dates back to 2004, when a senior judicial official accused him of “aggression against a representative of the state” as a result of a series of articles he wrote about Kurdistan’s judicial system. After several hearings were postponed, the judges finally changed the charge to defamation.
Dawodi, who is allowed to take calls in his cell, told Reporters Without Borders by telephone that he regarded his sentence as a warning to any journalist who might want to criticise the judicial system. “I just ask the judges to apply the law that is in force,” he said. “Even if the article of the 1969 law were still in force, I would not deserve to be in prison.”
Announcing that he has filed an appeal, Dawodi added: “It is my duty as a journalist to criticise the shortcomings of our judicial system.”
A Kurdish language newspaper created in 2001, Hawal is distributed in Sulaymaniyah and Kirkuk.
At least 77 journalists and media assistants have been kidnapped in Iraq since March 2003. Twenty-three of them have been murdered, 40 have been released and 13 are still being held by their abductors.
