Sulaymaniyah, July 30, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is appalled that Kurdish journalist Omed Baroshky will remain in prison for an additional six months following a decision by Iraq’s Duhok misdemeanor court. CPJ reiterates its call for Baroshky’s immediate release.
On June 28, 2025, Baroshky’s lawyer, Reving Yaseen, informed CPJ that the court had reactivated a previously suspended six-month sentence from December 2021, citing a violation of its conditions — Baroshky was convicted in January of defamation over a January 2024 Facebook post. Baroshky, who is the director of privately owned Rast Media, was originally set to be released on July 31, after serving a six-month sentence for that conviction.
“The use of overlapping defamation charges and suspended sentences to keep journalists behind bars has become a dangerous pattern for press freedom in Iraqi Kurdistan,” said Doja Daoud, CPJ’s Levant program coordinator. “Omed Baroshky has already faced retaliation for his reporting. We urge Iraqi Kurdish authorities to stop criminalizing the work of opposition journalists and ensure that they can operate without fear of reprisal.”
According to Yaseen, Baroshky was sentenced in 2021 under the Misuse of Communication Devices law, following a lawsuit filed by then-Kurdish lawmaker Mala Ihsan Rekani. The case stemmed from Baroshky’s reporting that Rekani had returned to the Kurdistan Region without undergoing the required COVID-19 quarantine procedures, “but the sentence was suspended on the condition that he not commit any offense for three years,” he said. “The court has now ruled that his 2025 defamation conviction breached that condition and ordered that he serve the full 2021 sentence in addition to the current term.”
CPJ called Aram Atrushi, the director of Zirka prison, where Omed is detained, for comment, but did not receive a response.
Baroshky previously served 18 months in prison between 2020 and 2022 under the same law because of social media posts critical of Iraqi Kurdish authorities. After Rast Media was raided and forcibly shut down in April 2023, he shifted his reporting to Facebook, which became his primary platform for publishing.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.