SULAIMANI (ESTA) — A court in Erbil on Thursday sentenced five other activists to one year each in prison, Esta Media Network’s reporter said, but they will be freed due to being in prison for over a year.
Erbil criminal court held a trial on the cases of activists Sleman Kamal, Firsat Ahmed, Amir Khalid, Jamal Khalil and Sleman Musa on Thursday morning.
The activists will be released because they have already served the time of the imprisonment, he added.
On Tuesday, the court also sentenced Badal Barwari and Omed Baroshki to one year in jail.
Barwari was released on Wednesday night after serving the time.
Journalist Baroshki will remain in jail due the one-year and six-months imprisonment sentence given to him by a court in Duhok on three different cases.
On Wednesday, the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in the Kurdistan Region, which has observed trials of the journalists and activists detained in Duhok last year, said it heard “no evidence” against Barwari and Baroshki during the trial.
“We heard no evidence that Badal Barwari and Omed Baroshki in any way incited violence or were part of planning violent protests,” it said in a statement.
*This story was updated at 11:57 a.m. EBL time
