Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, August 20, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Kurdish authorities to immediately release freelance Iraqi Kurdish journalist Sherwan Sherwani after an Erbil court handed him an additional four years and five months in prison.
“Sentencing Sherwani for a third time on dubious charges and imposing the maximum penalty shows the authorities’ determination to silence his critical voice and keep him behind bars,” said Doja Daoud, CPJ’s Levant program coordinator. “Kurdish authorities should recognize the harm these actions inflict on the region’s reputation and immediately release Sherwani.”
Sherwani was handed a six-year prison sentence in 2021 on charges of “destabilizing regional security” that was reduced by presidential decree. The journalist was due for release in 2023 before he was sentenced in July 2023 to four more years on charges of falsifying a document for fellow imprisoned journalist Guhdar Zebari—a charge the rights group Community Peacemaker Teams denounced as politically motivated.
Sherwani’s lawyer, Mohammed Abdullah, told CPJ that Sherwani’s most recent sentence is in connection with a June 2022 complaint filed by an Erbil Correctional Prison officer, accusing Sherwani of threatening him and his family while in detention. The court cited Article 229 of the Iraqi Penal Code, which addresses threats or assaults against state employees. Abdullah said the ruling relied solely on the testimony of the officer and two guards who acted as witnesses, and that Sherwani denies making a threat. Abdullah said they plan to appeal the verdict.
Sherwani’s brother, Barzan, told CPJ that the journalist refused to return to prison in protest of the verdict and was injured when security forces forcibly escorted him back into detention.
CPJ’s calls to KRG Coordinator for International Dindar Zebari for comment on the evidence used to sentence the journalist but did not receive a response.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.