Omed Baroshki, the concessioner of the Rast Media website, has been sentenced to six months in prison by the Duhok Court of Appeal in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR).
According to his lawyer, Baroshki has been imprisoned for the past six months, having been detained last January on at least six defamation charges. He was set to be released on Monday, July 28th.
Baroshki, a journalist from Badinan, was initially sentenced to two years and six months in prison in September 2021 by the Erbil criminal court for defaming the police and the governor of Duhok. He was arrested on August 18, 2020 and was released on February 22, 2022.
Rast Media is a news website that covers events in Duhok northern province and was founded by Omed Fatah (Omed Baroshki).
While his relatives eagerly awaited his return on July 27, a previous case was renewed due to a Facebook post about a detainee in Duhok named Mullah Nazir.
In the post, dating back to December 2024, Omed wrote: "Mullah Nazir has been kidnapped by a force in Zirka prison and taken to an unknown destination."
Ramazan Artisi, Baroshki's lawyer, informed KirkukNow that Omed was sentenced to six months in prison last December but the sentence was not enforced after an appeal.
"According to Article 144 of the Iraqi Penal Code, if a criminal whose sentence is suspended is sentenced in another case within three years, the case will be renewed," he added.
"We cannot do anything now because Article 144 is decisive and there is no room for it."
The Duhok Court of Appeal has upheld the six-month prison sentence of Omed Baroshki, the owner of the Rast Media website.
According to his lawyer, Baroshki has been in prison for six months due to at least six defamation charges and was supposed to be released on Monday.
Iraqi and international media outlets, organizations, advocates, and lawmakers have expressed grave concern over the increasing threat to press freedom in the KRI.
In February 2022, five of the 82 detainees in Badinan, mainly journalists and civic activists, were sentenced to six years in prison for “disturbing national security.”
These detainees, some of whom have been tried and released today, are victims of a wave of arrests carried out by the Asayish (Kurdish security forces) of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) since October 2020 in response to a series of major protests against delays in salaries of state employees, the KRG's handling of the economic crisis resulting from disputes with Baghdad over oil production, export, and corruption, which reached its peak during the Covid-19 pandemic.
