p2p news / p2pnet: On Monday p2pnet featured Riverbend, the nick for a young woman in Iraq whose Baghdad Burning blog is up for a £30,000 BBC Four award.

However, it seems she’s been lucky.

Kamal Sayid Qadir, an Austrian national of Kurdish origin who was arrested five months ago for posting “defamatory” articles about the authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.

"At an earlier hearing he had been handed down a sentence, since cancelled, of 30 years imprisonment on exactly the same charge," says Reporters Without Borders.

The conviction was under Article 111 paragraph 433 of the 1969 criminal code, which laid down prison sentences of up to five years for defamation, and, "The fact that the jurist belongs to a family of ‘24 martyrs’ of Saddam Hussein’s regime was taken into account by the judge as extenuating circumstances," says RWB, adding:

"Kamal Sayid Qadir has been held since 26 October 2005 in Erbil prison in the autonomous region of Kurdistan in the north of Iraq. He was sentenced, on 19 December 2005, for ‘defamation of public institutions’, a ruling that was subsequently quashed.

"In a statement posted on kurdishmedia.com, the jurist acknowledged making comments that were ‘inappropriate’ towards some people referred to in his articles."

Also See:
Riverbend - A Girl Blog from Iraq, March 27, 2006
Reporters Without Borders - Kurdish-born Austrian jailed for 18 months for online ‘defamation’, March 27, 2006

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