The Kurdistan Journalists Syndicate and Metro Center
strongly condemn the criminal operation that led to the assassination of the
two journalists (Hero Baha al-Din and Golestan Tara) working for Sterk TV,
which is licensed by the Kurdistan Regional Government. The two journalists
were martyred in a bombing carried out by a drone.
On Friday
morning, August 23rd, 2024, on the road linking the of Sulaymaniyah
city and the district of Sayyid Sadiq (60 km east of Sulaymaniyah), a Turkish
drone bombed a car carrying a group of media personnel from Sterk TV, which
works within the framework of the Chatr Media Company licensed by the Kurdistan
Regional Government.
The drone strike resulted in the car being hit, which
resulted in the martyrdom of the two journalists (Golestan Tara and Hero Baha
al-Din), and (Rebin Bakr), the person responsible for digital media for the Chatr
Media Company, was seriously injured in the attack.
That afternoon, a joint press conference was held by the
Metro Center, the Kurdistan Journalists Syndicate, and the Chatr Media Company
in front of the Forensic Medicine Center, after the bodies of the two martyrs
were transferred to the Forensic Medicine Center. The participants in the joint
conference strongly condemned the crime of assassinating the female journalists.
This is not the first time that the Turkish army has
targeted journalists. On July 8, the Turkish air force targeted journalists
from Chra TV, Tizi and Chra FM in a Qasabi complex in Sinjar district. The
bombing led to the martyrdom of journalist Murad Mirza and the serious injury
of journalists Madya Hassan and Khalaf Haidar.
Metro Center and the Kurdistan Journalists Syndicate,
Sulaymaniyah Branch, strongly condemn this heinous crime that resulted in the
martyrdom of the two journalists (Hero Baha al-Din and Golestan Tara) and the
injury of the journalist Rebin Bakr.
Metro Center and the Kurdistan Journalists Syndicate also
call on both the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Iraqi government to
exert maximum efforts, whether through diplomatic means or other means
available to the two governments, to pressure the Turkish government to prevent
such violations committed by the Turkish army against journalists and civilian
citizens.
Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region of Iraq
23 /8/2024