Shafaq News/ Dozens gathered near the People's Park (al-Shaab Park) in Al-Sulaymaniyah to protest the Judiciary rulings convicting journalists and activists for anti-government charges.
Demonstrators deemed the ruling "iniquitous and illegal after a show trial," Kamel Omar, a legal activist, said, "the verdict does not serve the interests of a Region that claims it perfects practicing Democracy and Freedom of Speech. The Judiciary is pursuing the same approach of the Executive authority, which is not good."
Omar called on the authorities to "issue any amnesty because the activists are neither culprits nor criminals."
Yesterday, Kurdistan's Court of Cassation ratified the imprisonment sentence against the activists convicted for charges related to toppling the government.
A Judicial source revealed that the Court denied the request filed by the Defense team of Bahdinan indictees to challenge the Erbil Criminal Court's decree that sentenced them to six years in prison.
The Defense team in the case of "Bahdinan Prisoners" lodged on Thursday a motion at Kurdistan's Supreme Judicial Council for the reconsideration of Erbil's Criminal Court ruling issued against the convicts.
A defense attorney said in a press statement at the main gate of the Supreme Judicial Council headquarters in Erbil, "we submitted today a statement to the Supreme Judicial Council and requested a review of the case and the ruling, annulling Article 56, according to which they were sentenced for six years, and closing the case."
In February earlier this year, the Region's Supreme Judicial Council refuted the claims of media outlets about illegalities, asserting that the trial took place publicly and transparently.
Erbil's criminal court sentenced two journalists to six-year imprisonment over charges of attempts to topple the government in the wake of the violent clashes that ravaged al-Sulaymaniyah last year, according to Iraq's Organization for Defending Journalists' rights.
