The five men were arrested in October following protests over delayed salaries for public school teachers, defence lawyer Aso Hashem told AFP.

They were charged with "inciting protests against the government and destabilising the region", he said.

"Arbil's Second Court of First Instance issued a sentence of six years' imprisonment for all five men," Hashem said, adding that they would appeal.

Protests against the Kurdish regional government (KRG) and the region's main political parties broke out in various cities late last year over a major fiscal crisis that caused delayed public sector salaries and pay cuts.

Authorities responded by arresting journalists and protest leaders and shutting down media outlets perceived as supportive of the demonstrations.

Karwan Anwar, the head of a media syndicate in the Kurdish region's second city Sulaimaniyah, told AFP that Tuesday's sentence was "tougher and harsher than expected".

"We're at a crossroads -- this is the first time a court has issued a six-year sentence for just expressing your opinion," he said.

"Will (the region) go back to being an open space, as we were long described, or will we head toward dark days?"

Iraq's Kurdish region was long seen as a safe haven for reporters and activists who had been harassed or threatened in other parts of the country.

But in a statement on Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said the sentencing indicated that was no longer the case.

Its Middle East representative Ignacio Miguel Delgado said the decision was "not only unfair and disproportionate, but it also proves that the Iraqi Kurdistan regional government has finally dropped the pretence of caring about press freedom".

In December, local and international rights groups accused the KRG of "targeting civil society activists by arresting them for their work and curtailing public freedoms, including media freedom and freedom of peaceful assembly".

But authorities have resisted such pressure.

During a press conference last week, KRG premier Masrour Barzani broadly accused journalists and activists detained across the Kurdish region in 2020 of being "spies".