Still figures gathered by the Kurdistan Journalists’ Syndicate estimate that there are around 1,200 media outlets – including TV, radio and print – in Iraqi Kurdistan. None of them broadcast in Arabic inside Iraqi Kurdistan – and that is even though the number of internally displaced people in the region (many of them Iraqis who speak only Arabic) is now estimated at over 1 million.
Journalists from both Iraqi Kurdish media outlets operating in Arab areas, and the Arab journalists operating in Iraqi Kurdish dominated areas, have it far from easy. Often both groups are treated by locals as though they are foreigners, unwelcome representatives of some interfering alien power.
In 2007, Iraqi Kurdish football fans attacked a TV crew from the Al Jazeera television channel in Dohuk, Iraqi Kurdistan – the channel is funded by the Arab government of Qatar. This was despite the fact that most of the members of the TV crew were actually Kurdish. The attackers said the camera crew were secret agents and that their bosses were racists.
During the same year, young Iraqi Kurdish men attacked the offices of the Al Fayhaa television station which broadcast from one of the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah’s taller buildings. Although the channel was apparently not doctrinaire in what it broadcast, the attackers justified their actions to police by saying those who ran the channel were racist Arabs.
Similar situations have played out for Iraqi Kurdish journalists. In 2008, offices of the Al Ittihad Arabic-language newspaper, which is run by the PUK, were attacked in southern Iraq after it ran an article that was considered derogatory toward Shiite Muslims. Offices were looted and set alight.
In 2014, the Baghdad offices of the Al Taakhi newspaper, which is run by the Iraqi Kurdish KDP, were attacked and the offices remain closed to this day.
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