This report documents how regulatory measures, regulatory in origin, have grown into control over who speaks in Iraqi media, for how many days they are silenced, and which narrative news outlets are asked to adopt. Among the measures documented are 25 decisions barring individuals from appearing in the media, three of them for a full year. In the count of the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights (IOHR), the Commission has imposed about 2,020 days of silence in total, more than five and a half years.
Summary
IOHR found that these decisions rest, at their core, on elastic terms: “the prestige of the state,” “offending state institutions,” “harming Iraq’s international relations,” and “the official position of the Iraqi state.” In March 2026 the Commission gave Al Jazeera English a choice: delete a report on the strike on the Habbaniyah camp, or air a correction “consistent with the established facts and the official position of the state.”
IOHR documented eight measures in the first six months of the monitoring period, then 29 in the following four and a half months. That second period began when Ali Falih al-Zaidi’s government won its vote of confidence on 14 May. During it, on 6 July, the Prime Minister renewed Abu Kalal’s assignment to run the Commission. A deadline the Commission set for licensing podcasts, internet channels and portable broadcasting devices expires on 14 November 2026. Those who miss it face suspension of activity, and the Commission says it will approach satellite companies “through diplomatic channels” to cut their broadcast.
All of this is happening in a legislative vacuum. The 2005 Constitution provides that the Commission’s work be regulated by law, and that law has still not been enacted. The Commission continues to rely on an order issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2004, which does not provide for any penalty of barring individuals from speaking. Its executive body is run under an assignment order from the Prime Minister’s office rather than a formal appointment, which weakens the guarantee of independence the Constitution requires.
IOHR does not defend everything the barred individuals said. Some are accused of sectarian or inciting speech, and Iraqi law punishes incitement before the courts, through public proceedings with a right of defence. What IOHR calls for is that regulation remain regulation: published rules, penalties set out in law, and a judge who rules whenever a person is to be deprived of the right to express themselves.
Methodology
This report is based on IOHR’s review of decisions issued by the Communications and Media Commission between December 2025 and 20 October 2026. IOHR relied on statements the Commission published on its website, on documents bearing its chairman’s signature as published by Iraqi media, and on press coverage that reported the content of those decisions. Wherever possible, it cross-checked each incident against more than one source.
The report did not rely on statements by other organisations as the source of any incident. Anything that could not be established from an official or independent press source was excluded, even when it seemed likely. Each measure in the incident log appended to the report carries a stated level of attribution: a Commission document or statement, a report attributed to its statement, or an established incident whose date could not be verified precisely.
The report counts each decision against a person, programme or institution as a separate measure. It treats an extension of a ban as a new decision, because it is issued in a separate document and adds a new period of silence. The December 2025 decision, which the judiciary overturned, is excluded from the total of ban days.
Limitations
The Commission does not publish a consolidated register of its decisions, and does not publish all of them at all. The figures here are therefore a minimum of what IOHR could establish, not a comprehensive tally. IOHR could not find the published text of “Media Entities Violations Regulation No. 28 of 2026,” on which the Commission relies for its latest licensing deadline. It also has no document showing that any specific decision was issued on the instruction of the Prime Minister’s office or a party leadership, and no written agreement between the Commission and the digital platform companies, although it is established that Meta complied with the Commission’s requests under threat. Two decisions against Ahmed al-Washah and Dania al-Maliki were issued between mid-June and mid-July 2026, and IOHR has not verified the day each was issued.
