Kirkuk’s federal police assault Kurdistan 24 crew while covering land disputes

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kirkuk’s federal police on Monday assaulted a Kurdistan 24 crew in the province while covering a land dispute between Kurdish farmers and a group of Arabs, the TV correspondent said.

While trying to reach a gathering formed by a group of Kurdish farmers over land disputes in Kirkuk’s Kharaba village, the Kurdistan 24 correspondent was “assaulted” by security members of Kirkuk’s federal police, who attempted to block the crew from covering the gathering, Kurdistan 24 correspondent Hemn Dalo said following the attack.

“The commander of the force ordered to arrest me [correspondent] and the cameraman,” Dalo said, adding, “I was beaten by them [forces].”

“A group of Kurdish farmers arrived on the scene and rescued us,” Dalo noted, as they were close to the gathering. The force retreated, Dalo said, as “they saw the Kurdish farmers’ support for us.”

On early Monday, a group of Kurdish farmers gathered in the Kharaba village to protest against the claims a group of Arabs who recently came back to the area made about their farmlands, according to the farmers.

“These lands belong to our ancestors according to all pieces of evidence,” Azad Mohammad, a protesting Kurdish farmer, told Kurdistan24, as he was holding an Ottoman-era land document, known as “Tabu.”

The farmlands were legally leased to the Kurdish farmers in Kirkuk province’s rural areas, before the establishment of the Iraqi state in 1921, according to the Kurdish farmers.

This is not the first time a Kurdistan 24 media team has been arrested or assaulted in the disputed territories. In early August, Iraqi security forces detained a Kurdistan 24 team that was also covering a clash between Kurdish villagers and several Arab families in the disputed Kirkuk province.

Read More: Iraqi forces detain Kurdistan 24 media team in disputed Kirkuk

As part of the Ba’ath regime’s Arabization program intended to change the demography of the areas, Arabs from southern and central parts of the country were incentivized to come to the area region granting them lands that originally belonged to its Kurdish residents.

After toppling Saddam Hussien’s regime in 2003, the newly-formed Iraqi government initiated a de-Arabization program, returning the lands to its original Kurdish owners.

However, after Iraqi forces and Iran-backed Hashd al-Shaabi militias pushed Kurdish Peshmerga forces from Kirkuk in late 2017, allegations of the forced displacement of Kurds began to emerge. Landowners were allegedly told to vacate their properties by ethnically Arab claimants who had Saddam-era documents.

Several Kurdish officials have accused Rakan Saeed, the Arab acting governor installed at the time, of facilitating ethnically divisive policies in efforts to tip the balance against Kurds. The Kurds have a majority of seats in the Kirkuk Provincial Council (KPC) and, as a result, are entitled to choose Kirkuk’s governor.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany