Kurdistan bans press conferences, rights group warns of ‘clear violation’
Shafaq News – Al-Sulaymaniyah / Erbil
Security forces in the Kurdistan Region have blocked several civil society groups from holding press conferences this month, a move rights advocates say marks a troubling rollback of free expression.
Network 19, a coalition of Kurdish rights groups, said on Monday that the bans amount to a “clear violation” of freedom of expression, urging authorities to end the permit requirement for such gatherings, whether indoors or outdoors.
The group noted that on September 20, security forces prevented the Professional Teachers’ Organization, the Supreme Committee of Pioneering Teachers, and the Teachers’ Rights Defense Committee from holding a press briefing outside the Kurdistan Parliament in Erbil. The event was later relocated and the statement read elsewhere.
On September 9, authorities in Al-Sulaymaniyah stopped the Kurdistan Organization for "Freedom and Change from holding a press conference" in Nali Park, citing the lack of an official permit. “These were not protests or sit-ins but press conferences aimed at conveying civic demands,” Network 19 stressed.
The group pointed out that Law No. 11/2010 regulates demonstrations and marches in public spaces but does not apply to press conferences. Nevertheless, officials have increasingly required permits even for events held in closed halls—an interpretation the coalition called an “overreach” of the law.
“These repeated bans undermine civil society’s ability to operate freely,” the statement added, warning that such restrictions erode the Region’s press freedom climate.
