State of Law-led (Maliki) government's press-freedom record: the Communications and Media Commission's 28 Apr 2013 suspension of 10 satellite channels (incl. Al Jazeera), targeting opposition/pro-Sunni outlets after their Hawija-raid coverage — HRW found no legal basis (arbitrary). Documented by Human Rights Watch (30 Apr 2013); corroborated by CPJ.

The official Communications and Media Commission suspended the licenses on April 28, 2013, amid spiraling violence and anti-government demonstrations in Sunni-majority provinces. The license suspensions targeted exclusively opposition stations while leaving others like state-run al-Iraqiya channel free to continue broadcasting.

Mujahid Abu al-Hail, who heads the media commission’s Department of Audiovisual Media Regulation, told Human Rights Watch that the commission suspended the licenses after concluding that the ten stations were “promoting violence and sectarianism.” The stations are: Al-Jazeera, Al-Sharqiya, Al-Sharqiya News, Al-Anwar al-Thany, Al-Fallujah, Al-Tagheer, Al-Garbhiya, Salah al-Din, Babeliya, and Baghdad TV.

The authorities have admitted that there was no legal basis for their decision, which looks more suspicious given the government's history of cracking down on opposition media, particularly during protests

[Source is in English; this field holds editorial context, not a translation.] Behavioral press-freedom / civil-liberties record of the State of Law Coalition-led government (Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki). On 28 April 2013 the government's Communications and Media Commission suspended the licenses of ten satellite channels — exclusively opposition / pro-Sunni outlets, while leaving the state-run al-Iraqiya channel untouched — following their coverage of the army's raid on a Sunni protest camp in Hawija (23 April 2013, 20+ killed). Human Rights Watch documented that a senior commission official admitted there was no legal basis for the suspensions and could cite no specific incitement to imminent violence. The Committee to Protect Journalists corroborated and condemned the move (29 April 2013): "The Iraqi government is conflating dissent with incitement," said CPJ's Sherif Mansour, calling the decision "clearly designed to stifle reporting on the ongoing violence." [Axes: press-freedom (behavioral), civil-liberties, democracy, sectarianism.]