The government and a number of journalists criticized the neutrality of Human Rights Watch (HRW) correspondents in Kurdistan Region, even though they emphasize the necessity of international watchdogs in the Region to monitor human rights and freedom.
In the recent months, as Kurdistan Region witnessed anti-government protests, HRW published a number of reports specifically or partially covering human rights violations in the Region. The reports, particularly the one published on May 24, elicited many different reactions, either welcoming or criticizing the report.
To some observers, including the Kurdistan Regional Government, the report contained biased and unconfirmed information unflattering to the KRG.
Although KRG takes these reports "seriously" and studies them, "some of them are far from truth," said Falah Mustafa Bakir, head of the KRG Department of Foreign Relations.
Bakir had previously written letter to the HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth on June 5 in which he expressed the KRG's appreciation for the organization's efforts in improving human rights while also offering a critique.
"We must take issue with some of the comments in the May 24 statement, and we feel that the lack of substantiation for some of your accusations undermines HRW's reputation as one of the world's leading international human rights organizations," Bakir wrote in the letter.
The KRG official's concern centers on two issues: the HRW's report "Iraqi Kurdistan: Growing Effort to Silence Media" was biased toward the Suleimaniya-based Livin magazine, which it described as "one of Iraqi Kurdistan's leading independent publications." Bakir's letter replies: "However, their independence is questionable at best, they have a clear anti-ruling party bias."
The report talks about lawsuits by the governing parties' (Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) top officials against Livin's Executive Editor Ahmed Mira because his magazine published a report saying KDP and PUK leaders were planning to assassinate three opposition party leaders.
"Such libel suits by Kurdistan government officials are nothing more than a thinly veiled effort to punish critics and create an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship," says HRW's Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the Middle East and North Africa Department.
Bakir defends the KRG officials' right to file the lawsuits by saying: "While it may be difficult for citizens of the long-established and stable countries of the West to imagine what damage an article like this can do to the credibility of a politician in the developing world, even in the West there are legal standards by which journalists and media outlets must abide." He complained the Livin report was based on a single, anonymous source.
The KRG and other observers, other major complaint was about a quote from Whitson where she compares Kurdistan Region rulers to the Baath regime.
She is quoted as saying: "The Kurdistan Regional Government promised a new era of freedom for Iraqi Kurds, but it seems no more respectful of Kurdish rights to free speech than the government that preceded it."
The KRG says it and the Kurdistan people were insulted and offended by this sentence and it made them doubt "whether HRW's purpose is to actually help the human rights situation in the Kurdistan Region, or simply to offend its leadership and its people," Bakir's said in his letter.
"I'm not certain exactly what they have been smoking at Human Rights Watch, or who their field investigators have naively listened to, but this kind of offensive absurdity from a respected international human rights organization needs a response," said David Romano in his weekly column for the Erbil-based Rudaw newspaper.
Romano's column was quoted by The Atlantic writer Jeffery Goldberg in his column, "Human Rights Watch's Upside-Down View of the World." He agreed with the premise that the HRW "seems to dislike Iraqi Kurds in much the same way it dislikes Israelis."
Another point that hints of bias from HRW is its report on minorities in Nineveh from November 2009. Khaled Sulaiman, executive editor of the Suleimaniya-based Haftana (Weekly) magazine expressed his astonishment at why HRW placed blame on the Iraqi Kurds for considering Shabaks and Yazidis as a part of the Kurdish people.
"When did this organization begin to consider the roots of ethnic groups and to ask the government and authorities to stop labeling one group or another as Kurds, Arabs or Turkmen?" questions Sulaiman. He said the report was also biased as it was based on interviews with Arab leaders in Mosul and the report reflects their point of view on the whether the Shabaks and Yazidis are Kurds.
However, Sulaiman sees it as a normal and positive step for international organizations to publish frequent reports on the Region, "as long as they are credible." The area and its situation encourage organizations concerned about human rights and freedom. "But the major problem [here] is the current mess of the Kurdish media," more than freedom of expression, he believes.
Sulaiman's sheds light on two points that were a problem for Kurdish journalists. "The Kurdish security agencies realize the journalists, attempts to publish information about corruption and deficiencies would serve their enemies. But it serves the community and its development."
His other comment is on journalists who "act as executives and believe they have the absolute freedom to take pictures, write and publish. They also mix journalism as a profession and political activities, journalists have become civil and social activists, he is an executive editor today, and tomorrow he will be a member of parliament."
"I don't say the organization [HRW] deliberately aimed this at the Kurdistan Regional Government, but those working for it in Kurdistan lack professionalism and objectivity, which means they don't follow the standards of their organization but are swayed by Kurdish media," noted Sulaiman.
