From Reporters Without Borders:
A Tehran appeal court has upheld the 11-year prison sentence that was imposed on journalist Mohammad Sadegh Kabovand for creating a human rights organisation in Iran’s Kurdish northwest. Under Iranian law, sentences of more than 10 years in prison cannot be the subject of appeals to the supreme court.
His lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, [...]
The Middle East News reports:
Unknown gunmen shot dead a 28-year old journalist [Dyar Abbas Ahmed] and an artist on Friday in the northern province of Kirkuk, according to Iraqi police sources.
CNN reported that Dyar worked with Ain, an Iraqi news agency.
In July of this year, 23 year old Soran Mama Hama, also a Kurdish journalist, [...]
As reported last week by the Kurdish Human Rights Project: Some 200 Kurdish prisoners of conscience in Iran are undertaking a hunger strike to protest against use of the death penalty and the prevalence of torture in detention centres throughout the country. Take Action Now - Sign the petition
Kurdish prisoners have been on hunger strike [...]
As reported earlier this month, an estimated 200 Kurdish prisoners of conscience have initiated a hunger strike in the prisons of Iran. The Committee for the Support of Hunger Strike for Kurdish Political Prisoners released the following three reports on their conditions, translated to English by Iranian activist, Sayeh Hassan:
21st Day of the Hunger [...]
Thomas Seibert reports on the pending trial against the main Kurdish political party in Turkey, the Democratic Society Party (DTP). The DTP is the just the latest Kurdish party of several that have had to face the threat of closure by the Turkish Constitutional Court. Since 1993, the courts have banned 3 Kurdish parties that [...]
One of many examples of inequality and discrimination facing Kurds in Turkey, from Today’s Zaman:
ANKARA (Zaman) - Democratic Society Party (DTP) deputy Nuri Yaman has claimed that a student in the town of Aliağa in the province of İzmir was not allowed to read a poem at a ceremony opening the new school year because [...]
Several Kurdish women and other women’s rights activists in Iran have been arrested throughout the year. Amnesty International has released another public statement renewing it’s demands that the Iranian authorities end their pressure and discrimination against these women’s rights defenders.
Reporters Without Borders Reports:
Reporters Without Borders today called for the release of a Kurdish contributor to national and foreign media, Massud Kurdpoor, who was arrested by intelligence ministry agents at his home in Bukan, Iranian Kurdistan on 7 August 2008.
The teacher had been broadcasting regularly on foreign radio stations Voice of America, Radio France International [...]
Reported by the AFP:
DAMASCUS (AFP) — The Syrian authorities have arrested three people, including the brother of the head of a banned Kurdish political group who has been in detention since July, a human rights group said on Saturday.
The National Organisation of Human Rights in Syria accused the authorities of “arbitrary arrests” and urged them [...]
Reported by the AFP:
DAMASCUS (AFP) — Syrian authorities have blocked access to 160 dissident websites since 2000 as part of a drive to censure the press and control Internet use, a free speech organisation said on Tuesday.
Security services have stopped access to “160 sites run by Kurdish political parties, opposition groups, newspapers — particularly from [...]
