A French journalist told AFP on Saturday that he was arrested while reporting in Iraqi Kurdistan, an “arbitrary detention” of several hours denounced by France, which deplores this “attack” on freedom of the press. .
Benoit Drevet, correspondent for French-speaking newspapers in Iraqi Kurdistan, was reporting on Friday in the Galala area on the impact on civilians of the bombardments that Turkey regularly carries out against Turkish Kurdish fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). settled in northern Iraq.
“As we were leaving, we were joined by the Assaïch (the regional police). They were waiting for us,” the journalist, who was working with the help of a fixer, told AFP. “They confiscated our belongings. They snatched my cell phone after I asked to join the French consulate,” he continued.
Seventeen hours of detention
Transferred to the central police station in Suleimaniyeh, capital of the province, Drevet says he underwent “several interrogations” and was “on file”, without being able to communicate with the outside world.
Without knowing the reason for his detention, the reporter claims to have been provided with the “necessary authorizations to work on the entire territory of Iraqi Kurdistan”. “I was neither handcuffed nor abused,” he explained.
He was finally released on Saturday “after 17 hours” of detention thanks to “the intervention of the French consulate in Erbil”, the capital of Kurdistan of Iraq.
France condemns
In a press release, the French consul in Erbil, Olivier Decottignies, “condemned in the strongest terms the arbitrary arrest and detention” of Benoit Drevet, “a new illustration” of the “recurring attacks on freedom of the press and rights of journalists throughout the Kurdistan Autonomous Region”.
Asked by AFP, a security source in Sulaymaniyah said that Drevet was in Galala, in a “dangerous zone”. “He spent the night with us as a guest, for fear that he would be exposed to an incident,” said the official, who wished to remain anonymous.
Iraqi Kurdistan is regularly singled out by human rights defenders who denounce arbitrary arrests, violations of freedom of demonstration and attacks on freedom of the press.