Sulaimani, July 16th, 2025: Security forces in Erbil, beating, threatening and insulting journalists confiscate their mobile phones and journalistic equipment and hand over their mobile phones on condition of receiving passwords, all this is rejected and condemned.

On July 14th, 2025, there were press conferences and protests in several neighborhoods of Erbil, security forces surrounded their premises and obstructed their work.

An insulting force

Women from Ankawa in Erbil blocked the main street of the neighborhood demanding justice in the distribution of drinking water in a fair manner.

NRT reporter Hersh Qadir and his colleagues Ali Abdulhadi, cameraman and Azad Saeed, driver of the agency, went to cover the incident when they were attacked by security forces.

"Five people beat me and I was hurt,” Hersh Qadir told Metro. "The most painful thing was the insults to my family and friends by the security forces.”

Chaotic Speda

On the same day, when the team of Speda TV (Hiwa Faqiani, Mohammad Ganjo, Nabaz Gurzaei) arrived at the protest site, the security forces were dispersing the participants and removing the barriers in front of the street.

"When we arrived, the security forces came to us and told us to leave the people, and to not create chaos, and that the people have no problem.” Speda reporter told Metro. 

"One of the forces who spoke to us was holding his gun in his hand, and not in his waistband,” Speda's reporter said.

Enemies of Memory

Westga News team, (Shahin Fuad, Ahmad Shakhawan) and Apora News’s team were in the same vehicle when an armed civilian force of more than 10 people who did not identify themselves, surrounded them, demanded the mobile phones of both teams, and they handed them over.

Before surrounding them, they saw a silver Elantra with several people in it and took pictures of the two teams.

"We contacted the security forces and found out that the perpetrators were in fact security forces. Five hours later we received our mobile phones and cameras but without their memory," Shahin Fuad, a reporter of Westga News, told Metro.

Filling out forms and fingerprinting

Two armed vehicles in civilian clothes blocked the press conference of an Iraqi election candidate in Erbil.

Knowing that the team (Diako Hussein, reporter, Massoud Rasul, photographer, Tayeb Reza, driver) were journalists, the force asked them to get out of the vehicle and hand over their mobile phones and cameras.

"They treated us badly and took away our mobile phones, cameras and memory cards,” AporanNews reporter Diako Hussein told Metro.

Diako said that the security forces made us fill out an information form containing the person's full address. "Then they took our fingerprints then we were able to recover our mobile phones,"

"We will beat you up”

In the same place, a team of Zoom TV (Karwan Hama Salih, Sherwan Mawlod, Ismail Mohammed), after covering the press conference, the forces approached them and detained them for a while and took their mobile phones, cameras and belongings.

"They threatened us that if we spoke, they would beat us,” said Karwan Hama Salih. "We went to the security forces in the evening to get our mobile phones, but they did not give them back until we gave them our passwords.”

Karwan said that when they took back his phones, his WhatsApp, Messenger and Telegram were opened and he did not know what they were watching, but said, "Several photos and videos of myself that do not have any connections to the incidents of that day
have been deleted from my phone gallery.

Metro Center says the incidents that occurred on July 14th against media teams tell us that the working conditions of journalists are difficult and violations against them have not yet become a shame for anyone who commits them at any level of power.