Support Free Speech in Kurdistan

Kurdishaspect.com – By Asos Hardi

Dear Sir/ Madam

As you may know, during the past year Kurdistan Democrat Party (KDP) has filed  many lawsuits against free press and independent writers who wrote criticizing articles about KDP's leader Masud Barzani (president of the Region) and his family members who occupy high positions in Kurdistan Regional Government.

These cases are bypassing the press law adopted by Kurdistan Parliament and signed by Barzani himself. Another important point is: the majority of these lawsuits are made against opinion articles and not news articles.
The last one was against two well known Kurdish writers who live in Europe, Aras Fatah and Mariwan Kanie. They wrote an article in Awene (June 8th, 2010) under the headline: "What Did the Kurdistan Regional President Say?".

As a response to these lawsuits a group of media outlets and civil society organizations republished the article in Kurdish, Arabic and English and more than 200 writers, intellectuals and activists signed the article to be "Theirs" and distributed with Awene newspaper yesterday (January 4th, 2010).  The main goal of this mutual publication is not only to support these two writers (as mentioned in the publication), but to express solidarity with all writers who have been under pressure during 2010.

Dear friends,

In this hard time of freedom of speech in Kurdistan, we need your help and support.

Please support freedom of speech in any way you can.

Kind regards
Asos Hardi
General Director
Awene for Press and Publishing