Dr. Farhad Pirbal detained on suspicion of burning down library in Erbil
Dr. Farhad Pirbal, Iraqi Kurdistan, 2018. Photo: Pirbal’s FB
HEWLÊR-Erbil, Iraq’s Kurdistan region,— University professor Dr. Farhad Pirbal was detained in Erbil on Sunday on suspicion of setting fire to a library.
The police had arrested Pirbal at his place of work in Iraqi Kurdistan capital city of Erbil.
Spokesperson for the Erbil Police Hogir Aziz said Pirbal was arrested on orders from the director of police directorate after a lawsuit was filed.
The detention came after Wafaiy House Library caught fire at dawn on Sunday. Pirbal then released a video of the fire on Facebook saying that he had torched the library.
In the video, Pirbal can be heard saying, “That is how I burn your house. You are burning my house! You are taking my house, Nechirvan Barzani!”
Meanwhile, Director of Wafaiy House Library in Erbil Soran Aziz said in a post on Facebook that he had informed police, the Asayish, and the governor of Erbil that Pirbal had previously threatened to burn the library.
“You are affiliated with a specific political party, which I have problem with,” the director of the library said that Pirbal had told him. “I want to send a message to the party by burning the library because I cannot reach to that party.”
Director Aziz has said that he has no party links.
“We were told Farhad Pirbal would not do that,” he added.
Aziz added the library had suffered “great damage” as a result of the fire.
Wafaiy House Library was built in 2010 and housed more than 5,000 books. Aziz said most of the books were burned and many others were soaked with water when the fire was being brought under control.
In 2017 armed men attacked Kurdish professor Farhad Pirbal in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Pirbal was born in 1961 in Erbil and migrated to France in 1986 after graduating from the department of Kurdish Language and Literature at the University of Salahaddin. He later continued his studies in University of Sorbonne and returned to Kurdistan Region in 1994. Ever since he is teaching at the University of Salahaddin.
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