Kurdistan 24 reporter barred from NGM founder's press conference

During the referendum, he launched a “No For Now” campaign, which opposed Kurdish secession from Iraq.

Kurdistan 24 2023/08/26 17:54

The logo of Kurdistan 24. (Photo: Designed by Kurdistan 24)

Kurdistan Kurdistan 24 Shaswar Abdulwahid Aram Bakhtiar freedom of press New Generation Movement

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A Kurdistan 24 reporter, who had been invited to attend the New Generation Movement founder Shaswar Abdulwahid's press conference on Saturday, was denied entry without any explanation.

The New Generation Movement (NGM, a.k.a. Naway Nwe in Kurdish) had invited media outlets, including Kurdistan 24, to attend a press conference at the movement's headquarters in Sulaimani at 3:00 p.m.

Aram Bakhtiar, a Kurdistan 24 reporter in Sulaimani, was present at the headquarters of NGM. However, he was prevented from entering the press conference hall without explanation.

Kurdistan 24 strongly condemns the harassment of its journalists and further refutes any allegations that its reporting is subjective or prejudiced in any sense.

Abdulwahid founded NGM in Oct. 2017, coinciding with the onset of the Kurdistan Region independence referendum. During the referendum, he launched a “No For Now” campaign, which opposed Kurdish secession from Iraq.

NGM’s turning point was in May 2018, when the party was able to secure four seats in Iraq's Council of Representatives. Later in Sept. 2018, it also secured eight seats in the provincial elections of Kurdish Parliament, becoming the fourth largest grouping out of 40 political parties in the Kurdistan Region.

However, NGM later experienced internal controversy. In April 2019, the group’s supreme council suspended four members who publicly criticized the party. Furthermore, these two individuals were arrested by Sulaimani authorities after reportedly attempting to blackmail a fellow female NGM member to prevent their suspension, claiming to have nude videos of her.

In another example, two NGM councilmembers, Rabun Maroof and Sarkawt Shamsulddin, published a Facebook post in April 2019 stating that the party “no longer enjoys collective decision making.” The duo also alluded to nepotic practices such as the party’s internal structure being “involved in business and family to the extent that it is difficult to separate.”