60sec Update; Foreign Journalists Freed

Radio Kurdistan

This is your 60 Second Update by Radio Kurdistan, May 20, 2022. Today, sources close to Marlene Forster and Matej Kavcic now report that the two foreign journalists who were arrested in Sinjar on April 20 have been allowed to leave Iraq today. Despite the Iraqi government's blanket accusations that the journalists worked with terrorists, followed by an unfounded claim of espionage, the government suddenly released the journalists without any substantiated charges at all. In recent years, Human Rights Watch has documented the Iraqi and the KRG governments' arbitrary use of vaguely worded laws to imprison and intimidate journalists. At the same time, Iraq has failed to investigate beatings and killing of journalists based on the stories they cover. These attacks on journalists have intensified following the October 2019 anti-corruption protests. During these protests, according to Human Rights Watch, security forces used excessive force, including firing live ammunition at protesters, killing at least 544 people and wounding at least an additional 24,000.