Shafaq News/ Journalists from Kurdistan voiced discontent with the Federal Culture Ministry's decision to deprive the media persons working in the Region of the financial allowances it allocated to Iraqi artists, authors, and Journalists.

Shokor Ahmed, a veteran journalist from the Kurdistan Region, said, "it is obligatory to include the Journalists of the Kurdistan Region in this grant. The Ministry of Culture is a federal entity, and its services shall be equal to all the regions and citizens as stipulated by the Iraqi constitution."

"From a national perspective, the Ministry shall treat the journalists of the Kurdistan Region in the same manner it treats their colleagues in mid and south Iraq," he said.

Hewri Karzan, a Kurdish journalist from the Kurdistan Region, said, "the journalist everywhere in Iraq serves the same cause: delivering the voice of the Iraqi citizen. The people of the Kurdistan Region are Iraqis, and we work to deliver the voice. Our duties are not different from the duties of our brothers and sisters in the southern and central governorates. This is the point of contention: do they deem the people of the Region Iraqis?"

Journalist Razan Majed said that the people of Kurdistan, including media persons, are deprived of their constitutional rights, calling on the Federal Ministry to "grant them equal rights to their colleagues."

"This issue will be an incentive for the Kurdish journalists to continue to work for the national cause," he said.

The Minister of Education, Hasan Nadhem, said that the government has allocated 12 billion dinars to grant Iraqi artists, authors, and Journalists 600,000 dinars to each journalist.