Authorities Sue Kurdish Newspapers Over Criticizing Islam
ERBIL, Iraq -- The concessionaire, editor-in-chief and an author were recently sued by the religious body of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) over writing an article that is deemed to have offend Islam and the belief of the Muslims here in the north of Iraq. Kurdistan Islamic Scholars' Union (KISU) and the general prosecutor of Kurdistan have called for Mulla Bakhtyar, the concessioner of the Kurdish-language Chawder weekly newspaper to be put on trial. Bakhtiyar is also senior official at the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Iraq's President Jalal Talabani. The KISU and prosecutor's office have also called for the editor-in-chief of Chawder and Sarwar Penjweni, the article's author, to be tried for the article. The KISU is a gathering of Muslim clerics close to the two ruling parties of the PUK and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, led by Kurdistan Region's President Massoud Barzani. In the Oct. 4th issue of Chawder (Kurdish for Observer), Penjweni describes a popular Islamic belief about the ascendance of Prophet Mohammed to heaven as an "imaginary" story. The event is known as Isra and Miraj among Muslims. Following the publication of the story, the KISU sued the newspaper. The Union had cited the publication of a painting of Prophet Mohammed in the same issue of the newspaper as violating several articles of Kurdistan's Press law. The KISU say the drawing is a cartoon while the newspaper firmly rejects that. Jafar Guwani, the spokesman of the KISU told Rudaw, "The article published in Chawder has lots of untrue things in it and publishes a cartoon of the prophet… We all know that the cartoons of the Prophet were already published in Danish newspapers and had a negative impact. Chawder's cartoon is nothing but insulting Islam and its sacredness and an affront to the feelings of Muslims." Sarwar Penjweni, the writer of the story, rejected the accusations by the KISU and the general prosecutor. "I have not insulted Islam or the Prophet. I only did a critical scientific research," said Penjweni. Penjweni who has a bachelor's degree in Islamic Studies and authored 15 books, said, "Isra and Miraj is no more than an fictional story and several Islamic scholars have also said that it was only the Prophet's soul that ascended to the heaven." He said the reason behind the sensitivity towards his article was because of the pictures that accompanied the article. "The painting is 500 years old and was done by a Muslim drawer and has been published before elsewhere," he added. Bahman Tahir, an editor at Chawder, said that "the picture is not a cartoon, because a cartoon can be told apart and has its own features." Tahir said his newspaper has not "defamed anybody; it is the KISU through Jafar Guwani that has defamed us… We are not concerned about the lawsuit and will attend the court." He expressed doubts at the motives behind the lawsuit, calling it a "political" move. He said people from outside the KISU are behind the lawsuit. Abdullah Salam, the spokesman of the general prosecutor's office said after looking at the picture, "it became clear for us that it injures the feelings of Muslims and is an insult to Muslim beliefs. It falls under the jurisdiction of the Article 9 of the Press Law and we have filed a lawsuit against it as the general prosecutor and the lawsuit has been sent to the investigative court of Sulaimani because the newspaper is published there." Painting the pictures of the Prophet and Muslim caliphs are considered sinful and illegal in some Muslim countries, especially those who follow the Sunni sect of Islam. But the Shia Muslims do not consider it prohibited. The KISU had earlier filed a lawsuit against Hawlati, one of the Kurdistan's most popular newspapers, and had issued a statement slamming Badran Habib Ahmed, the head of Aras Publishing House because of an article he wrote following the attack on a church in Baghdad. Ahmed's article was titled "Islam is disgracing us." In its lawsuit against Hawlati, the KISU had demanded 500 million Iraqi Dinars-- around $420,000--worth of a fine to be paid to the Union by the newspaper. Responding to that, Kamal Rauf, Hawlati's editor-in-chief told Rudaw, "They are neither God's nor the Prophet's representatives to ask for 500 million Dinars of compensation on their behalf." Meanwhile, Arafat Karam Mustafa, the secretary general of the Islamic Thought Forum in Kurdistan criticized the KISU's positions on newspaper articles regarding Islam. Mustafa urged the KISC to stop condemning people for their writings on Islam. "Unfortunately if someone writes something on Islam today, (the KISU) no later than tomorrow will have a big headline on the writer. They (KISU) need to take the path of criticism rather than condemnation and punishment," Mustafa said.