February 26, 2021 The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a partnership of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and FIDH, requests your urgent intervention in the following situation in Iraq. Description of the situation: The Observatory has been informed by the Gulf Centre of Human Rights (GCHR) about the sentencing of freelance journalists Sherwan Sherwani, Ayaz Karam Bruji and Kohdar Mohammed Amin Zebari as reprisals for their social media coverage of the wave of protests that have been held in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq since August 2020[1]. On February 16, 2021, the Second Criminal Court of Erbil sentenced Messrs. Sherwani, Bruji and Zebari to six years of imprisonment for “destabilizing the security and stability of the Kurdistan Region” (Article 1 of Law 21/2003 of the Parliament of the Kurdistan Region and Articles 47 and 48 of the Iraqi Penal Code) in relation with their conversations on social media and a discussion group they created on Facebook, in which they criticised the local government. The Second Criminal Court further imposed them a period of five years of police surveillance upon completion of their sentences and ordered the confiscation of their personal mobile phones, laptops and cameras. Messrs. Sherwani, Bruji and Zebari are currently being detained in the General Directorate of the Kurdish Internal Security Forces (Asayish) prison in Erbil. They have appealed the decision before the Kurdistan Court of Cassation.