Law Department lecturer at the University of Human Development (UHD) Professor Dr Saman Fawzi participated in an international conference on digital media and its impact on societal security with an important paper titled ‘Legal protection of the right to obtain information under the Law on the Right to Access to Information in the Kurdistan Region-Iraq No. (11) of 2013’ and co-authored by another UHD Law Department lecturer Dr Asos BraKhas. The conference was held by Knowledge University in Erbil in collaboration with Sulaimani Polytechnique University on 27-28th April 2024.

The conference attracted researchers from 16 universities in 13 countries in Europe, Asia and Africa. It chose to give priority to the UHD lecturers – their paper was the first to be presented in the first session. This highlights the importance of the paper and its very direct connection to the theme of the conference.

The paper addresses the issue of the right to obtain information and the protection or violation of that right by the state institutions, as well as the publishments that must be given to the violators. Another issue the paper addresses is the question of why journalists and media people cannot still benefit from the law for obtaining overt government documents for transparency and reducing corruption in the Kurdistan Region.