A statement to the public opinion

KDP’s attacks on freedom of political activities and its political opponents

 

 posted: 19 Apr 2006

 In the last four months, Kurdistan Democratic Party has being oppressing people in the areas under its control. Besides, it committed crimes and violation against the activists of our party. In December last year, Yousif Qadir, who is in charge of the administration of our party’s branch in Arbil, had been detained twice. The first time was because he was distributing the statement of our party pertaining to the election farce in December, and the second time was in the end of December when he was distributing our statement about Ja’fari’s decision of increasing the prices of fuel. The security forces of KDP (Asaiysh) raided his house, arrested him and released him after two hours of interrogation. Then, on 21st of March and at nine o’clock, they abducted Bashdar Ali, one of our cadres when leaving an internet café. They tortured him both physically and psychologically and incarcerated him up till the next morning, telling him that ‘this is only a warning’. In addition, on 23rd of March someone shot Jabar Sofi in his face and deeply wounded him in Dyana town; but fortunately escaped death. Jabar Sofi is a well-known figure in Dyana and he is in charge of distributing the publications of our party.

 

incarcerating Yousif Qadir is a clear violation of freedom of political activities and an apparent prohibition of political opponents’ activities, had KDP bear  the responsibility of abducting Bashdar Ali and the attempt to assassinate Jabar Sofi.

 

Sentencing Dr. Kamal Said Qadir for thirty years, the mentioned violations which have happened recently in a short period of time, and the security forces (Asaiysh) of Duhok’s attack on the demonstrators on 26th. of this month apparently show that KDP’s administration tries to oppress the activity of any political opposition and Kurdistan people’s political, civil and individual rights. It is worth mentioning that KDP has not met the demands of teachers, students, and other parts of society of demonstrating, and thus has not allowed any demonstration and oppressed them just from the beginning.

 

Simultaneously, the violations referred to above affirm the fact that the allegation of Barzani and the authorities of KDP about ‘political freedom’ and ‘the promise of annulling the ban on political freedom’ in Arbil is none but a futile attempt to decorate their mass media and to deceive the public opinion in Iraq and all over the world.

 

We, the Worker-communist Party of Iraq, see that is our duty to inform the public opinion of the world about these facts and we will take all variant political ways in our struggle to stand against those oppressive deeds and to make KDP respect freedom of political activities. KDP has to terminate these anti-freedom undertakings and give up those acts which remind people the history of despotism and suppression.

 

Through this statement, I call the people of Kurdistan, the leaders of the protest movements, and the freedom-loving people in Iraq and all over the world and the progressive and human right organizations to exert pressure on KDP and make it stop attacking people and their protests and to respect freedom of demonstration, expression and political activities in Kurdistan.

 

Saman Karim

In charge of Kurdistan Organization of

Worker-communist Party of Iraq

1st. April 2006

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