SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Kurdistan Region’s Security Council (KRSC) released on Thursday video confessions from five journalists and activists who were sentenced to jail in Erbil last month.
On February 16, Erbil criminal court-2 sentenced journalists Sherwan Sherwani, Guhdar Zebrai and Ayaz Karam as well as activists Shvan Omer and Hariwan Issa to six years each in jail on national security charges.
The Kurdish security forces arrested the five in Duhok province in October over allegedly undermining national security in the region.
The KRSC said the five journalists and activists had “direct links” to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and that they had spied on the security services and judges in the Region.
“During the process of interrogations, it has been proved through evidence and confessions that they had had direct links to the PKK and several other parties,” the KRSC said in the footage.
“Upon their request to disrupt security, they had gathered information on the headquarters of Asayish [security], Peshmerga and judges in Kurdistan,” it added.
The KRSC further said the five men had received training on “light and silent weapons” and that the “nature of their work had no relation with journalism and civil activism. Rather, they had used the name of media and civil [activism] to carry out their destructive conspiracies and programs”.
“As they are mentioning, no physical or mental pressure has been used against them during the process of interrogations and confessions,” it said.
