Metro Center Condemns killing of Kurdsat Correspondent



September 19, 2013: Metro Center for Defending Journalists’ Rights strongly condemns the killing of Yaqub Rasul, a Kurdsat journalist, asking for a serious investigation into the crime and bringing its perpetrators into a public trial.

A police officer in Pishdar, Sulaimaniyah province, said that on Wednesday night Yaqub Rasul was shot from a car close to a kindergarten in Qalladize District, and he was rushed to hospital but later died. 

Metro Center has not reached a conclusion about the motive behind the killing, although preliminary investigations led to ‘the arrest of a suspect.”

Metro Center for Defending Journalists’ Rights states that "the crime of killing is unaccepted under any motive or justification and the society should not be silent. We condemn the killing of the journalist, Yaqub Rasul, asking for a serious investigation into the crime and bringing its perpetrators into a public trial.”

Metro Center for Defending Journalists’ Rights is an independent and nonprofit organization; it was established in mid-May 2009 in the city of Sulaimaniyah by a number of journalists and lawyers, namely Razaw Sharif, Hiwa Osman, Amar Al-Shabandar, Twana Osman and Rahman Gharib. The Center was supported by Institute for War and Peace Reportting (IWPR) until the end of 2010. In a conference held in the city of Erbil in 2010, members of the board of the organization were elected. 

  Metro published two annual reports in Kurdish, Arabic and English in 2011 and 2012 with the support of International Media Support (IMS) and the Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA). It also published two sport reports. The Center published a research about the freedom of journalism in 2012 as well.


AM:10:55:31/10/2013




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