By Shamal Aqrawi

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - A Kurdish writer was sentenced to 1-1/2 years in prison on Sunday for defaming Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, in a case that has raised questions about the freedom of the press in post-war Iraq.

But the Kurdish representative to the United States, Qubad Talabani, later said Kamal Karim, an Iraqi-born Kurd with Austrian citizenship, would be pardoned.

"The president of the Kurdish region (Barzani) will likely issue a pardon," Talabani told CNN.

"Maybe it's time to revise certain laws. We are an emerging democracy ... we need to improve our institutions."

Karim was originally sentenced in December to 30 years' jail for defaming Barzani but was retried.

"I swear by God I am not guilty. I am not satisfied with this verdict. I am a victim," Karim said after the new sentence was pronounced. The judge said the court had been lenient.

"This sentence is fair and it is proportionate to the charges against him," judge Faridoun Abdullah told Reuters.

"We helped him. We took into consideration that he is an academic and has served in the education field. So we sentenced him to a year and a half. Otherwise we would have sentenced him to five years."

Karim was convicted by a state security court in Arbil after an hour-long trial on December 19 on charges of defaming Barzani and public institutions. He was arrested in October.

Karim had published articles on a Kurdish Web site accusing Barzani and his Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of corruption and abuse of power.

European president Austria has called for Karim's release.

Barzani -- also president of the Kurdistan region -- and other Kurdish leaders promised a new era of democracy after 2003's U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein.

HUMAN RIGHTS

The Kurdish north has since prided itself on having a better human rights record than elsewhere in Iraq, where sectarian violence has raised fears of civil war.

"This court is unfair. I want a fair trial," said Karim before he was sentenced.

The writer was brought to court in December for what he was told would be a procedural hearing, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said, basing its account on an e- mail written by Karim.

When he arrived at the court in Arbil, he was told he was on trial. He had only five minutes to confer with a defence lawyer and the trial lasted just one hour, the CPJ said.

"Everything is possible in the courts of Kurdistan and the law is not applied in the right way," said Samir Salim of the Kurdistan Islamic Union, which faced riots and attacks after it broke from the alliance that includes Barzani's KDP.

On March 17, security forces working for the other main Kurdish party, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, arrested Hawez Hawezi, a teacher who also writes.

He was charged with defaming the Kurdistan regional government after an article he wrote on corruption appeared in the Hawlati newspaper, an editor at the paper, who asked not to be named, said on Sunday.

Hawezi was released on bail and is awaiting trial. An editor at Hawlati said Hawezi had been beaten while being driven to detention in Sulaimaniya.

"We call on the authorities to dismiss this case at once. Rather than pursue a journalist for doing his job the Kurdish authorities would do well to investigate those who assaulted our colleague Hawez Hawezi," said CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper.

Three days sit-in in London in protest to the Home Office's asylum laws
(27-29 March in front of parliament)

Thousands of asylum seekers who have fled the Islamic regime of Iran and have come to Britain are faced with appalling and inhumane conditions. Many have either been refused asylum and issued removal orders or are in the precarious situation of waiting. An illegal, unsafe and unprotected life has been imposed on many of them.

According to reports published by the Home Office, in 2005 alone more than 600 Iranian asylum seekers were deported back to the Islamic regime of Iran and many more are at risk of being deported in the future. Deporting Iranian asylum seekers to an Islamic dictatorship is taking place despite the fact that any opposition is violently crushed, dissidents suppressed, executions have increased, unfair trials are norms, freedom of speech and press is denied, and human rights are violated with impunity.

In recent months, several political activists have been executed; a number of young, teenaged gay boys have been hung publicly in Mashhad; hundreds of opponents in different cities and towns have been arrested and imprisoned and the Islamic government is intending to execute some of them. Also some labour activists have been arrested, tortured and imprisoned.

The flagrant violations of human rights by the Islamic Republic of Iran have concerned many human rights organisations and even some western governments! They have condemned state violence against the population at large. It is interesting to note that the British government is amongst those countries condemning the Islamic regime of Iran for violating human rights but the truth is that its condemnations are nothing more than politicking for its own political benefits not anything else!

The British government is not concerned that people in Iran are stoned to death, executed, imprisoned, tortured and faced with sexual apartheid. All it wants is to stop asylum seekers from coming here at any cost. The fact that people, who flee persecution, are directly or indirectly victims of British or western government’s policies, is not of any concern to them.

The current policy of the British government towards asylum seekers is totally arbitrary, irresponsible and inhumane Following our “life without fear” campaign and in protest against these inhuman policies, the International Federation of Iranian Refugees in the UK is organising a three day sit-in protest on Monday- Wednesday 27- 29 March in London in front of Parliament.

The International Federation of Iranian Refugees (IFIR) in the UK and the participants of this sit-in demand the following:

1- Iran under the Islamic Republic is not a safe country. No Iranian asylum seeker should be deported to Iran;
2- There should be an immediate stop to all detentions of Iranian asylum seekers. All those currently in detention in British prisons for the ‘crime’ of seeking asylum should be freed;
3- Given the present suppressive nature of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the British government must change its policy towards the asylum seekers and grant them refuge.

We urge all humanitarian organisations and individuals, trade unions, and all freedom lovers to support our campaign for “a life without fear” and our three day sit-in.

For more information, please contact Siamak Amjadi, the Secretary of the International Federation of Iranian Refugees, UK Branch.

Tel: 07946 75 25 34 or 07931 866 985
ifiruk@yahoo.com

BM Box 1919
London WC1N 3XX

news.com.au

A KURDISH writer was sentenced to one and a half years in prison for accusing Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani of abuse of power, witnesses said.

Kamal Karim, who also has Austrian citizenship, had originally been sentenced to 30 years in prison for defaming Mr Barzani but was released and retried.
The case has raised questions about freedom of the press and democracy in the Kurdish north, which prides itself on having a better human rights record than public bodies elsewhere in Iraq.

Karim was originally found guilty in December under a law passed by the Kurdish regional parliament in 2003. The region has a high degree of autonomy, including the power to enact legislation.

Advertisement:
Kurdish leaders promised to help deliver democracy and freedom of the press in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, who oppressed the Kurds for decades.

By Shamal Aqrawi

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - A Kurdish writer was sentenced to 1-1/2 years in prison on Sunday for defaming Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, in a case that has raised questions about the freedom of the press in postwar Iraq.

Kamal Karim, an Iraqi-born Kurd with Austrian citizenship, was originally sentenced to 30 years in jail for defaming Barzani but was retried.

"I swear by God I am not guilty. I am not satisfied with this verdict. I am a victim," Karim said after the sentence was announced.

The judge said the court handed down a lenient sentence.

"This sentence is fair and it is proportionate to the charges against him," Faridoun Abdullah told Reuters.

"We helped him. We took into consideration that he is an academic and has served in the education field. So we sentenced him to a year and a half. Otherwise we would have sentenced him to five years."

Karim was convicted by a state security court in Arbil after an hour-long trial on December 19, on charges of defaming Barzani and public institutions. He was arrested in October.

Karim had published articles on a Kurdish website accusing Barzani and his Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of corruption and abuse of power.

European president Austria has called for Karim's release.

Barzani -- also president of the Kurdistan region -- and other Kurdish leaders promised to usher in a new era of democracy after 2003's U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein.

The Kurdish north has since prided itself on having a better human rights record than public bodies elsewhere in Iraq, where sectarian violence has raised fears of civil war.

"This court is unfair. I want a fair trial," said Karim before he was sentenced.

The writer was brought to court in December for what he was told would be a procedural hearing, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said, basing its account on an e-mail written by Karim.

When he arrived at the court in Arbil, he was told he was on trial. He had only five minutes to confer with a defence lawyer and the trial lasted just one hour, the CPJ said.

"Everything is possible in the courts of Kurdistan and the law is not applied in the right way," said Samir Salim of the Kurdistan Islamic Union, which faced riots and attacks after it broke from the alliance that includes Barzani's KDP.

thepeninsulaqatar.com

TUNCELI, Turkey: Turkey’s armed forces killed 14 militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the biggest operation against the separatist group so far this year, army sources said yesterday.

A large operation began two days ago in the eastern Turkish province of Mus, with the army using gunships against the rebels, the sources said.

“With the start of spring the PKK has started its preparations for attacks and the biggest military operation so far this year was started,” an army official said.

Operations are still continuing in the region.

Three army brigades from central and western Turkey have arrived in the southeast to join fresh attacks against the PKK near the Iraqi border, said the same official.

Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of more than 30,000 people since the group launched its armed struggle for an independent Kurdish state in southeast Turkey in 1984.

The PKK is classed as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States.

Iran Focus– Hundreds of people have been arrested in Iran’s south-eastern province of Sistan-va-Baluchistan after a deadly ambush on a government convoy carrying dozens of top provincial officials, an informed source in Tehran told Iran Focus.

The majority of those arrested are Baluchis, a predominantly Sunni Muslim ethnic minority, who the authorities have claimed have ties to the attackers. A group calling itself Jondollah has claimed responsibility for the attack

Local state-run media have received instructions from the government not to report the arrests on security grounds, the source, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

Twenty-two Iranian government and provincial officials were killed and at least seven, including the governor of the city of Zahedan, were critically wounded in the ambush as their convoy was returning from Zabol to Zahedan in the early hours of March 17. A further seven were taken hostage.

Hours after the attack, Iran’s police chief, Brigadier General Ismaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam, announced there was evidence that the assailants had held meetings with British intelligence officers. On Thursday, he said that authorities had identified those responsible for the attack.

Iran’s Interior Minister also pointed the finger at Britain and the United States earlier this week for masterminding the attack.

The minister, radical Shiite cleric Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, also claimed the people behind the attack were the same as those behind a spate of bombings in Iran’s south-western province of Khuzestan earlier this year and in 2005.

“What is clear about the recent events in Zabol and Khuzistan is that those behind the attackers were the same”, Pour-Mohammadi said.

“According to reports received, certain American and British security officials have had meetings with certain leaders of bandits and have encouraged them to carry out terrorist attacks [in Iran]”, he said.

Iran has witnessed escalating unrest in recent months in areas populated by Baluchis, who complain of discriminatory and repressive policies by the theocratic regime.

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - U.N. inspectors should know by next week how far Iran has advanced on the path to nuclear enrichment, diplomats said Saturday - findings that could shape Security Council action against Tehran and hurt U.S. claims that Iran has accelerated its efforts.

The International Atomic Energy Agency - the U.N. nuclear watchdog - is clearly rankled by the U.S. assertions just days ahead of a trip by IAEA inspectors to Natanz, the site of Iran's known enrichment efforts.

IAEA officials normally refuse to be identified as such when discussing sensitive topics such as disputes with leading IAEA board members, such as the United States.

But reflecting exasperation, a senior agency official dropped such reservations Saturday as he called the U.S. claims that an agency briefing on the advances made by Iran on enrichment was a bombshell "pure speculation and misinformation.''

"It comes from people who are seeking a crisis, not a solution'' to the confrontation over Iran, the official said.

The senior IAEA official did not offer details on the spat.

But a diplomat in Vienna, who demanded anonymity in exchange for discussing confidential information, said some U.S. administration officials were misrepresenting a recent briefing by the agency to Vienna-based representatives of America, Russia, China, France, and Britain - the five permanent Security Council members.

The information on where Iran was on enrichment and where it was headed was not new, but the U.S. officials claimed ``the ... IAEA was blown away by (Iran's) progress and had the U.S. redefining its timeline'' for Iran's capacity to make its first nuclear weapon down to three years, the diplomat told The Associated Press.

Just last year, U.S. officials cited intelligence estimating Iran would need 10 years for its first bomb.

IAEA experts planned a trip to Natanz ``in the next few days'' and will report to the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog by early next week, said an official close to the agency.

Their findings on how close Iran is to putting 164 centrifuges to work at uranium enrichment at its pilot plant at Natanz will come at a crucial time.

The U.N. Security Council is deadlocked on how to react to Tehran's defiance of international pressure on its nuclear program, and the report by IAEA inspectors could help - or hurt - U.S.-led efforts to ratchet up the pressure on Iran in the form of a harshly worded council statement.

Tehran is far from its ultimate goal of running 50,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium at Natanz for what it says will be the fuel requirements of its nearly finished Russian-built Bushehr reactor. It has less than 1,000 centrifuges.

But former U.N. nuclear inspector David Albright recently told the AP that Iran has enough black-market components in storage to build the 1,500 operating centrifuges it would need to make the 20 kilograms - or 45 pounds - of highly enriched uranium needed for one crude weapon.

Still, Iran has been open about its enrichment plans in recent months, telling the IAEA earlier this year it plans to start installing the first of what will be a 3,000-centrifuge plant at Natanz later this year.

The U.S. mission in Vienna declined to comment on how the Americans viewed last week's briefing. But Western diplomats from permanent Security Council nations said it revealed little new.

One of those briefed described Tehran's progress toward enrichment - including plans to activate the 164-pilot plant at Natanz - as similar to a paper presented by the Iranians a year ago at talks with key European nations.

Those talks collapsed after Iran ended its freeze on enrichment-related activities - a move that led the 35-nation board to refer Tehran to the U.N. Security Council.

The council has been at loggerheads since taking up the issue earlier this month.

Britain and France support tough language calling on Tehran to return to a freeze of enrichment but Russia and China, the two other permanent council members, are opposed.

In a telephone conversation Friday with his Iranian counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow's view was that the nuclear dispute should be resolved ``through political diplomatic means within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency,'' his office said in a statement.

The statement indicates that Russia has not altered its position that the IAEA - and not the Security Council - should take the primary role.

The New York Times

By Steven R. Weisman

The Bush administration and Russia, struggling to forge a joint strategy on Iran, remain at odds over whether the United Nations Security Council should take a step toward imposing penalties on Iran by labeling its nuclear activities a threat to world peace, American and European officials say.

The officials say that the Russian-American impasse, in which leading European countries are siding with the Bush administration, has held up what the West had hoped would be a unanimous move by the Security Council on Iran this month. The impasse also has echoes of the Iraq war, they say, in that Russia is concerned about a possible replay of the United States' using resolutions by the Council to confront Iran in the same way it acted against Iraq.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, spoke Friday to try to close a crucial difference over the language of a possible Security Council statement on Iran, specifically the statement's reference to Iran's nuclear activities as "a threat to international peace and security," various officials said. That wording, by implication, would open the door for further Security Council action against Iran.

Ms. Rice said Friday that Russian and American officials would work through the weekend to resolve their differences.

The sensitive talks with Russia are only the latest in a series of difficulties that have strained relations in the last couple years. Among the irritants have been Russia's crackdown on dissent, its cutoff of natural gas shipments to Ukraine and its efforts to extend influence in the region.

A new source of irritation could come with the disclosure from Iraqi documents that a possible Russian spy operation early in the Iraq war in 2003 provided Saddam Hussein with information about American war plans and troop movements.

A senior State Department official said Saturday that the department was studying details related to the disclosure, and no decision had been made on whether to raise the matter diplomatically with the Russians. But American officials say that Russia is extremely sensitive over the Iraq war, and it has vowed not to let the United States use pressure from the Security Council on Iran as a means to authorize economic penalties or even military action.

Russia's foreign intelligence service has denied passing information the war plans. On Saturday, a state news agency, RIA, cited unidentified Russian security officials as saying that the American Defense Department study that included the documents seemed intended to punish Russia for opposing the 2003 invasion. "This kind of unsubstantiated allegation against Russia's intelligence service has been voiced repeatedly," said Boris Labusov, a spokesman for the service.

A Western diplomat, referring to the Security Council discussions on Iran, and speaking on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are confidential, said: "The Russians are worried that if you label Iran a threat to international peace, it's the beginning of a process. If there is going to be a solution, it will have to be negotiated by Lavrov and Rice."

The Bush administration had some hope over the weekend that the Russian-American talks could produce agreement soon. That contrasted with the mood early this week after a contentious session involving American, European, Russian and Chinese envoys at the United Nations.

Bush administration officials have declined to discuss the possibility of penalties on Iran. They and European diplomats emphasize that any future penalties against Tehran would be structured to avoid strangling the Iranian economy as a whole and stirring anti-Western resentment among ordinary Iranians.

The administration concern is that suffering by Iranians would delay the day of a more pro-Western government taking power in Tehran, undercutting a planned $85 million American program to subsidize Iranian dissidents, promote exchange programs and sponsor broadcasts to encourage pro-Western attitudes.

Despite the desire to win over Iranians, the administration and its European partners have prepared a series of escalating economic and political penalties that could be ready for imposition on Iran by the summer, officials said.

Those penalties, they said, would start with imposing travel bans or freezing foreign-held assets of Iranian officials, followed by a ban on commercial dealings with any businesses connected to Iran's military or to its nuclear programs.

More sweeping bans on commercial, business and energy relations would be saved for later, various officials have said, adding that if the Security Council does not authorize penalties, European countries may act unilaterally after consultation with the United States.

But a ban on military and nuclear energy dealings with Iran would have immediate economic effects on Russia, which has contracted with Iran to develop military defense systems and establish a civilian nuclear reactor on the Persian Gulf coast city of Bushehr. For its part, Russia argues that penalties would backfire and cut off what little cooperation Iran is still giving.

European diplomats also say that the Russians have raised objections to the American spending plan to encourage political change inside Iran. The plan is widely seen as analogous to efforts to bring about "regime change" in Iraq a few years ago.

Iranian news media outlets, meanwhile, are praising Russia and China for trying to block a Security Council action that would impose penalties on Iran, according to Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University.

"The Iranian papers are bursting with stories about how China and Russia are not caving to the American pressure to punish Iran," Mr. Milani said. "It's clear that they are trying to portray this as a victory for Iranian diplomacy, which has gotten Russia and China not to cave in to U.S. pressure."

Andrew Kramer contributed reporting from Moscow for this article.