Kurdish paper fined for attacking president

SULAIMANIYA / IraqiNews.com: A Kurdish newspaper has been fined by a court in Sulaimaniya city for publishing an article in which it allegedly attacked Iraqi President Jalal al-Talabani. “A final verdict has been delivered by the Sulaimaniya Court, ordering the Kurdish Hawlati newspaper to pay a fine of 10 million Iraqi dinars and its former editor-in-chief, Abd Aaref, 3 million ID,” the current editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Kamal Raouf, told IraqiNews.com news agency. “The newspaper has appealed against the court’s decision,” Raouf added. In its issue number 386 of January 13, 2008, the newspaper published a translated report by American journalist Michael Robin in which he claimed that Talabani has a fortune of $400 million. Talabani filed a lawsuit against the newspaper. “A lack of transparency in the management of the Kurdistan region and officials’ refusal to reveal their fortunes and property are the main reasons for professional mistakes in journalism,” Raouf added. Meanwhile, the newspaper’s proprietor, Tareq Fateh, quoted a member of the political bureau of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which is led by Talabani, as saying in a recent issue that the two main Kurdish parties have been receiving a monthly amount of $30 million each from the general budget for six years. Fateh said that the court’s decision will curb the freedom of the press in the region. SS (S) 1