On 17 February, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR-I) authorities released journalist Guhdar Zebari after more than three years of unjust imprisonment. Authorities in the KR-I arrested Guhdar Zebari in October 2020 along with four other journalists and activists. The Erbil Criminal Court sentenced him to six years in prison following a grossly unfair trial marred by serious violations, including allegations of torture and the use of his torture-tainted confessions to convict him. He was scheduled for release in August 2023 after his sentence was commuted, but the authorities sentenced him to another six months on additional spurious charges intended to keep him behind bars.
