ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Rudaw reporting team was detained for about five hours by federal security forces in the Makhmour district of Erbil province while covering the nationwide census and Kurds who returned to their hometowns to be recorded in disputed areas.
Reporter Bakhtiar Qadir and cameraman Ibrahim Adnan were detained at Makhmour on Friday morning. Video footage showed security forces speaking Arabic and instructing them to put down their camera.
Security forces were taking the two to Mosul in Nineveh province for further investigation, but instead returned them to Makhmour and released them about five hours after they were detained.
Speaking live on television after he was released, Qadir said they were detained because of a misunderstanding. He explained he and his colleague Adnan had permission from the relevant authorities to cover the census and went to Makhmour to report on the extended lockdown and count.
At Makhmour, which lies within the areas disputed between the federal and Kurdish governments, “there was a misunderstanding with some officers who thought that we had filmed the checkpoint without permission, but in fact we had filmed people who were permitted [to move] such as military personnel and those who wanted to enter Makhmour,” Qadir explained.
He said when they were detained, some security forces wanted to "mistreat us, but some commanders came and knew how to respect journalists."
Before the pair were freed, the Kurdistan Journalists Syndicate issued a statement calling for their release and saying it “denounces the actions of Iraqi security forces following the arrest of the reporter and cameraman of Rudaw Media Network.”
Iraq is conducting its first population census in decades. A lockdown was in effect on Wednesday and Thursday, restricting movement within and between provinces for the census. A partial lockdown was extended on Friday, preventing intercity travel while enumerators complete the gathering of census data.
During the lockdown, transportation within and between cities is allowed for journalists, security forces, health workers, civil defense teams, technical teams from communication companies, and on-call staff of oil and gas companies, according to the Kurdistan Region’s interior ministry.
The census has caused concerns about how the data will reflect demographic changes due to conflict and Baathist-era Arabization policies in the disputed areas.
Updated at 4:21pm
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