Kurdish-born Austrian jailed for 18 months for online “defamation”

Wergera kurdî li jêrê Austrian national of Kurdish origin, Kamal Sayid Qadir, who was arrested five months ago for posting “defamatory” articles about the authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison. At an earlier hearing he had been handed down a sentence, since cancelled, of 30 years imprisonment on exactly the same charge. Reporters Without Borders said the conviction was contrary to international standards in freedom of expression cases. “Any prison sentence for an offence of opinion is unacceptable, even in cases of insult or defamation,” the press freedom organisation said. “We are particularly wary of the operation of the Iraqi Kurdish justice system which started by condemning this jurist to 30 years in jail, then divided his sentence by 20, while the charges remained the same. We hope the appeal court will overturn this decision and set him free”. His conviction was under Article 111 paragraph 433 of the 1969 criminal code, which laid down prison sentences of up to five years for defamation. The fact that the jurist belongs to a family of “24 martyrs” of Saddam Hussein's regime was taken into account by the judge as extenuating circumstances. His lawyer, Govend Baban, told Reporters Without Borders that the article in the criminal code could only be applied in the case of a complaint by an individual and not to a case brought by a public ministry, as was the case. He added that the court in Erbil was not competent to try the case, because the offending articles were published in Austria. His client has anyway appealed against the verdict, which he called “unfair” and “political”. Kamal Sayid Qadir has been held since 26 October 2005 in Erbil prison in the autonomous region of Kurdistan in the north of Iraq. He was sentenced, on 19 December 2005, for "defamation of public institutions", a ruling that was subsequently quashed. In a statement posted on kurdishmedia.com, the jurist acknowledged making comments that were “inappropriate" towards some people referred to in his articles. ` ------------- Create your blog with Reporters without borders: www.rsfblog.org