Amnesty International’s report draws attention to a campaign of arrests directed at journalists, activists and protestors, on grounds of “national security”.
According to the report, in the governorate of Duhok alone Kurdish security forces arrested more than 100 people between March 2020 and April 2021.
Amnesty investigated the cases of 14 people arbitrarily arrested in Badinan, of whom three were journalists and eleven social and political activists. They stated that even family members of these people had been “threatened and harassed”.
According to the report of Amnesty, journalist Şerwan Şerwani, who was in solitary confinement for 68 days, between October to December, had been subjected to degrading treatment, and had been faced with the threat that “his wife would be raped in front of him”.
Amnesty underlined that the authorities had launched a chilling crackdown and called for an end to arbitrary arrests and detentions and the immediate release of those arbitrarily detained in connection with the situation.