Iraq begins processing cases of disappeared Faili Kurds, Official Says
Shafaq News/ Iraq has begun processing the cases of 22,000 Faili Kurdswho went missing under the former Baath regime, a senior official at theMartyrs’ Foundation said on Monday.
Tariq al-Mandlawi, head of the foundation's Legal Department and chairof the Committee for Faili Kurds Affairs, told Shafaq News that the agency hadcontacted the Prime Minister's Office about the missing Faili Kurds, promptingthe office to involve the Supreme Judicial Council.
“The council has formed a specialized court to investigate their fate,especially since most of them are still officially listed as alive in civilrecords,” al-Mandlawi said.
He noted that the foundation had expedited the process of issuing deathcertificates through the court, with 70 certificates issued so far. “Thepersonal status court has reviewed their cases, recognized them as martyrs, andincluded them under the provisions of the Martyrs’ Foundation Law No. 2 of2016,” al-Mandlawi added.
“Statistics show that 22,000 Faili Kurds were detained, most of themheld in prisons such as Nugrat al-Salman, Prison No. 1, Fifth Division Prison,Abu Ghraib, and other facilities,” he said. “These martyrs were buried in massgraves, yet they remain listed as alive in civil registries.”
Decades of Persecution
The Baath regime launched a large-scale campaign against Feyli Kurds inthe late 1970s and early 1980s, revoking their Iraqi citizenship and seizingtheir properties. They were subjected to deportation, forced displacement,imprisonment, and execution during the rule of former President Ahmed Hassanal-Bakr in 1970 and 1975, and later under Saddam Hussein’s regime in 1980.
Historians attribute the persecution to the Faili Kurds’ ethnic andsectarian identity as Shiite Kurds.
In 2010, Iraq’s High Criminal Court ruled that the mass deportation anddisappearance of Faili Kurds constituted “genocide.”
Later that year, the Iraqi government pledged to address theconsequences of these crimes, and parliament officially recognized the forceddisplacement and disappearance of Faili Kurds as acts of genocide.
