Kurdish KDP security forces have been criticized for human rights abuses, abuses "ranged from threats and intimidation to detention in undisclosed locations without due process." In 2015, the local KDP security forces arrested and detained political activist Kamal Said Kadir, for having written articles on the Internet critical of the KDP. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Some activists have claimed that membership in Kurdish parties is necessary to obtain "employment and educational opportunities" in Iraqi Kurdistan. The US State department report said that "Kurdish authorities abused and discriminated against minorities in the North, including Turcomen, Arabs, Christians, and Shabak", and that Kurdish authorities "denied services to some villages, arrested minorities without due process and took them to undisclosed locations for detention, and pressured minority schools to teach in the Kurdish language". Christian minorities in Kirkuk also "charged that Kurdish security forces targeted Arabs and Turcomen".