Sivan Perwer is held by an OPP officer during a high-risk police takedown on Highway

"We were just filming Canada's countryside and then there were guns everywhere"

-- Kurdish entertainment legend Sivan Perwer

Kurdish Torontonians trying to make a good impression on their community's most famous singer certainly did not have an armed OPP takedown in mind.

But that is exactly what happened Sunday night on Hwy. 427 as the crew filming a cultural star for Kurdish TV was mistaken for a pack of armed and dangerous men in a black Hummer.

What resulted was akin to a movie scene.

Read the rest:

Singer gets rude welcome to Canada

Source: KurdishMedia.com

Posted: 18 August 2009

An attack across the border would mean war, Kurdish president Massoud Barzani warns

Deborah Haynes in Irbil, northern Iraq - Any move by Turkish troops into Kurdish territory would be a declaration of war, the region’s leader said yesterday.

President Barzani gave the warning as a new wave of clashes inside Turkey left up to 20 Kurdish guerrillas dead. He said that Ankara was using its grievances with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as an excuse to challenge the growing prosperity and independence enjoyed by Iraqi Kurds in their largely autonomous region.

“If they invade or if there is any incursion, it means war,” Mr Barzani said at his offices on the outskirts of Arbil. “If they attack our people, our interests, our territories then there will be no limit because everything is subject to that incursion.”

He urged Turkey to solve the problem through dialogue, not guns. “If they take a peaceful approach, then we are ready to help as much as we can . . . The unfortunate thing is that they are not allowing other . . . options. They insist on war as being the only means to solve that problem.”

Turkish Army sources said that their troops had killed 20 Kurdish guerrillas yesterday in a large operation involving 8,000 soldiers with air support in the eastern province of Tunceli, 370 miles from the Iraqi border. Other reports put the toll at 15.

Adding to the tension, a suicide car bomber killed at least seven people in the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk. The city is due to have a referendum on whether to become part of Kurdish-run northern Iraq, further boosting the Kurds’ power base.

Ankara feels threatened by Kurdish fighters, who use camps in Iraq’s mountainous Kurdish region for attacks on Turkey. It has demanded the extradition of PKK leaders – a request that Iraq says is unrealistic – and is threatening an incursion.

Mr Barzani said that the problem of the PKK, which began an armed campaign in 1984 to secure better rights for Kurdish people living in Turkey, could not be solved through violence.

“We are ready to cooperate with Turkey, provided that Turkey will not only go for a military solution,” he said, adding that he opposed the build-up of 150,000 Turkish troops.

He also hinted that Turkey had another reason for its tough stance on the PKK, which is not a new problem. “I am about to be convinced that the PKK is only an excuse,” he said. “The continuous, direct threats of Turkey against the Kurdistan region and its behaviour has created a doubt, leading us close to the conviction that exactly this is the aim. The Kurdistan region is the target, otherwise why should we be involved in the fight between Turkey and the PKK?”

A sharp rise in clashes between Turkish soldiers and the outlawed group in recent weeks has left scores dead, increasing pressure on Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, to take more action. The PKK says it is holding eight soldiers prisoner.

The United States, Iraq and other countries have been pressing Turkey to refrain from cross-border military operations. A military campaign could destabilise one of the few stable areas in Iraq and leave the United States in an awkward position with key allies: Turkey, a member of Nato, the Baghdad Government and the self-governing Iraqi Kurds in the north.

Mr Barzani said that talks with Washington and other allies centred on the desire to avoid conflict, although he acknowledged that the US-led coalition had the overall responsibility of protecting Iraq under a UN resolution. “To what extent they [the United States] will stay committed to that is the question, but we do not want to embarrass the Americans,” he said. “We are not asking them for military help, we are asking them to help so that we defuse the tensions so that the war will not take place.”

Mr Erdogan is due to meet President Bush on November 5 and Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, is expected in Ankara on Thursday for talks with Turkish officials.

Mr Barzani also expressed a strong desire to avoid a return to a period of Kurdish tensions with Turkey, Syria and Iran – countries where Kurds have settled – and emphasised the need to recognise the rights of millions of Kurds. “It is better for all of us to sit down together, reach an understanding. We are also a nation, we exist, we have a right to live,” he said.

The President urged the PKK to honour the ceasefire and to release the eight Turkish soldiers being held.

“They should stay away from violence. They should adopt a peaceful approach, a peaceful solution.”

Kirkuk bombings

February 17 Two car bombs kill 10 and injure 60

March 19 Car bombs kill 12 and injure 37

April 2 Suicide lorry bomb kills 12 and injures 150

July 16 Three suicide car bomb attacks kill 86 and injure up to 180

October 11 Seven civilians and two policemen killed when suicide car bomb targets a police convoy in a crowded street #

Source: The Times - By Deborah Haynes 29/10/2007

Posted: 30 October 2007

8 October 2007

 

XL airways refuse to carry deportees  -  Home Office Panic!

1. September - XL Airways announced it would not charter anymore of its' planes to the Home Office to carry deportees.

2. Friday 5th October - The Independent front-page reveals the extent of assaults during deportations.

3. Monday 8th October - In an article today,  "Major airline refuses to help with forcible removal of immigrants" The Independent prints a Home Office statement that airlines can opt out of flying deportees if they choose to do so.

Extracts of the Independent article:

Home Office, refusing to disclose details about deportation flights ;

"If we were to disclose the information you have requested, this would prejudice the number of airlines willing to contract with the agency on charter operations and could drive up the cost of such operations. In addition, the release of information could damage commercially those airlines who offer this service."

XL Airways ;

"... we operated one flight in February to DR Congo as part of this contract, without full understanding of the political dimensions involved. Our chief executive [Phillip Wyatt] had made it quite clear to all concerned that we will not be operating any further flights of this nature ... We are not neutral on the issue and have sympathy for all dispossessed persons in the world, hence our stance."

British Airways  said they were under a legal obligation to return failed asylum-seekers

"It is UK law and we comply with it - it's like asking whether we are happy paying income tax."

Home Office said that deportation flights are only contracted with willing airlines

"The agency uses agents/brokers to arrange both charter and scheduled removals. Airline captains have the right to refuse carriage of a passenger and will do so if they feel appropriate for security or commercial reasons."

Full story: Major airline refuses to help with forcible removal of immigrants

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article3038391.ece

Related article:

"Home Secretary urged to respond to deportation abuse allegations"

Saturday 6th October - Read the full article here ;

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3033323.ece

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is facing calls for a full Commons statement into allegations that hundreds of people being deported from Britain faced beatings and racial abuse by their official escort teams. MPs of all parties expressed horror at cases of alleged abuse highlighted by The Independent.

Damian Green, the shadow Immigration Minister, called for an urgent statement to MPs regarding the allegations.

"Any incident of mistreatment deserves an urgent and serious investigation. If there are serious problems, then let's hope ministers actually stand up and accept responsibility, rather than hiding behind their officials like Home Office ministers usually do," he said.

Independent front page and other articles from Friday 5th October

Beaten, bleeding - and then returned in a wheelchair

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article3028716.ece

British guards 'assault and racially abuse' deportees

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article3028727.ece

Emma Ginn: 'It is easy to abuse when a victim is out of sight'

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article3028726.ece

Leading Article: Inhumanity, hypocrisy, and a policy that shames Britain

http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article3028690.ece

What you can do

Email a letter to the Independent in response to today's article. Some may feel that British Airways equated forced deportations of to the unpleasantness of paying income tax, which is inappropriate in the extreme considering the fate of men, women and children fearing persecution may be in British Airways' hands.  Also, that British Airways' crass financial analogy is possibly indicative of their priorities, especially given that the Home Office statement implies that airlines are not, as British Airways have stated, under a legal obligation to carry out deportations.

Email (no attachments), giving postal address and telephone number, to letters@independent.co.uk

If you email a letter to the Independent, we suggest you read today's Independent article in full.

Posted: 8 October 2007

 

Ocalan: To Lose Kurds Means To Lose Turks

Roj TV-The jailed Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, had the possibility to meet with his brother and lawyers last Wednesday.

Ocalan gave long evaluation regarding a solution for the Kurdish question and warned the politicians and the military officials in Turkey.

He said:

''If you focus on Turkish nationalism and extremism, the Kurds will react in a same way and separation will be soon a fact. To lose Kurds means to lose Turks. That is why the Republic should be democratized. If you are looking for a solution, if you want to establish peace and the republic to become democratic, then we are ready. If you are saying there are no Kurds and you try to annihilate them, then I am warning you again. The Kurds too are strong, they have their mountains, cities and villages. They will be able to defend themselves. At the same time Kurds and the Shiites in Middle East might work together in the future and this would constitute a real danger to Turkey. The connection between the Kurds and Iran dates from before the birth of Jesus Christ. The Medians and Persians already had their relation. A further development of this relation can't be prevented anymore. The USA is watching too. But these people don't even know. The state-union of Turkey is an imitation of a union-state. There are 3 types of union-states, the first one is like the French state, the second one like Germany and the third one is an imitation as Turkey is one. Therefore the state-union should change.''

Ocalan also evaluated the Turkish military operations in Kurdistan saying that the Turkish officials are responsible. He continued as follows:

''So many guerillas are losing their lives and soldiers are dying. Is this not a pity? I feel sorry for the soldiers too. Sometimes I forget myself and I am thinking about them. But the attitude of the officials is known too, their crying on the funerals is not real. They are not solving anything. They say that they will continue their policy of annihilation until one person is left. I warm them once again: they are on a dangerous path. Who will finally take the responsibility?''

WE ARE READY FOR A SOLUTION IF WANTED

The Kurdish jailed leader said that the policy conducted by the Turkish state since the last 30 years is not bearing any fruit. The only thing that leaves them to do is to accuse him for their failure. He continued to say that despite this they don't want to talk things through, everything should be discussed.

Ocalan said:

''I am telling you very openly: you paved the way for North Iraq. They want to establish a new Israel in North Iraq. But I have been asking for a democratic Kurdistan. I have been struggling against the current development. But they saw me as an obstacle and therefore they handed me over to Turkey. The state of Barzani will be a union-state with its own army and its supporters: the Kurdish-Shiite cooperation, the Arabs, Israel and the USA they will give weapons to 50 thousand Kurds and nobody will stop. The Kurds have relations with Israel, Syria and Iran. Don't look at Syria, some of them supports Turkey, some of them supports us. In Iran there will be no big clashes between the Kurds and the Iranians. Everybody have its own PKK, the USA has its own PKK, the EU has its own PKK, Syria has its own PKK, Iran has its own PKK, Talabani and Barzani have their own PKK. But Turkey doesn't see that.''

Ocalan said finally that if they want him to contribute to the establishment of peace inside Turkey, they should provide me the facilities, but if they continue punishing me for every word I say, I will not be able to do anything.

From: www.mesop.de

 

Posted: 29 June 2007

13 March 2007

Still Here, Still Human

Campaign to end the destitution of refused asylum seekers

The 'Still Human, Still Here' campaign is dedicated to highlighting the plight of tens of thousands of refused asylum seekers who are being forced into abject poverty in an attempt to drive them out of the country.

Supporters of the campaign believe that the denial of any means of subsistence to refused asylum seekers as a matter of government policy is both inhumane and ineffective.

We are calling on the Government to:

    * End the threat and use of destitution as a tool of Government policy against refused asylum seekers

    * Continue financial support and accommodation to refused asylum seekers as provided during the asylum process and grant permission to work until such a time as they have left the UK or have been granted leave to remain

    * Continue to provide full access to health care and education throughout the same period

You can help us by lobbying your MP

Meet your MP to help end the scandal of refused asylum seeker destitution.

We are seeking an amendment to the UK Borders Bill, which is currently going through parliament. We have produced an Alternative Bill, which we want you to encourage your MP to support.

Please set up a meeting in your constituencies as soon as possible to discuss the destitution of refused asylum seekers and to get their support to change government policy.

Tools for the campaign, there are four downloads

    * Alternative Bill   -   Please hand this to your MP when you meet them

    * Activist lobby briefing   -   Read the Activist lobby briefing

    * Full Parliamentary briefing   -   Please give this to your MP if they would like to know more about the issue

    * Lobbying Guide   -   Download the guide to lobbying your MP

http://www.stillhuman.org.uk/take-action.html

'Still Human, Still Here' is supported by the following organisations.

    * Amnesty International UK
    * Asylum Aid
    * Asylum Rights Campaign
    * Asylum Support Appeals Project
    * Church Action on Poverty
    * Citizens Advice
    * Immigration Law Practitioners' Association
    * Migrants Resource Centre
    * Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants
    * Refugee Action
    * Refugee Council
    * Scottish Refugee Council
    * STAR (Student Action for Refugees Network)
    * Welsh Refugee Council
    * Observing organisation:
      No Recourse To Public Funds Network

Still Here, Still Human

http://www.stillhuman.org.uk/

From: NCADC

Posted: 13 March 2007

28 February 2007

 

IRAN: Iranian Kurdish journalist Adnan Hassanpour detained; fears of ill treatment

The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN is seriously concerned about the detention of Iranian Kurdish journalist, writer and human rights activist Adnan Hassanpour, who has been held incommunicado since 25 January 2007. International PEN fears that he is being detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to free expression and if so calls on the Iranian authorities to release him with immediate effect. International PEN is also alarmed by reports that he may be at risk of ill treatment, and is seeking reassurances of his well being from the Iranian government.

Amnesty International gives the following information (Urgent Action: UA 39/07):

Adnan Hassanpour, journalist and advocate of cultural rights for Iranian Kurds, was reportedly detained on 25 January in Marivan, a small city in the northwestern province of Kurdistan. He is believed to be held incommunicado in the provincial capital Sanandaj, where he is at risk of torture or ill treatment.

Up to six people, reportedly from the Ministry of Intelligence, are said to have telephoned Adnan Hassanpour’s mobile telephone on 25 January and told him to go to a certain place. When he followed their instructions, he was arrested. Security forces personnel reportedly took him back to his home where they removed his computer, notebooks and other personal effects prior to detaining him. It is believed that he was transferred the same day to a detention centre in the provincial capital, Sanandaj, around two hours away, where he is believed to be held incommunicado.

Adnan Hassanpour has reportedly been denied access to his family and his lawyer. His mother is said to have made several requests to Ministry of Intelligence officials to visit him, after travelling for more than two hours in cold winter weather to reach Sanandaj, which have all been denied. The officials have reportedly indicated that he will be detained for several more weeks, although he is not known to have been charged with any offence.

Adnan Hassanpour is a former member of the editorial board of the Kurdish-Persian weekly journal, Aso (Horizon), which was closed by the Iranian authorities in August 2005. Adnan Hassanpour had previously reportedly been tried in connection with articles published in the journal.

According to PEN’s information, Adan Hassanpour’s arrest may have been motivated by a recent interview he gave to the Voice of America. No charges against him have been made known.

RECOMMENDED ACTION

Please send appeals:

• Calling on the Iranian authorities to disclose the charges under which Adnan Hassanpour is being held and calling for his release if he is being held solely for peacefully exercising his right to free expression;

• Expressing concerns at reports that he may be at risk of ill treatment and seeking reassurances from the Iranian authorities that Adnan Hassanpour’s wellbeing is guaranteed.

APPEALS TO:

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic
His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei,
The Office of the Supreme Leader
Shoahada Street, Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: info@leader.ir or istiftaa@wilayah.org

Head of the Judiciary
His Excellency
Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Ministry of Justice, Park-e Shahr,
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: via Judiciary website: Iranjudiciary.org/feedback_en.html
Salutation: Your Excellency

Minister of Intelligence
Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie
Ministry of Intelligence,
Second Negarestan Street,
Pasdaran Avenue,
Tehran
Islamic Republic of Iran.
Email: iranprobe@iranprobe.com

COPIES TO:

President:
His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Presidency,
Palestine Avenue,
Azerbaijan Intersection,
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: Via Foreign Ministry: +98 21 6 674 790
(mark: "Please forward to H.E. President Ahmadinejad")
Email: dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir
via website: www.president.ir/email

If possible please send a copy of your appeal to the diplomatic representative for Iran in your country.

For further information please contact Cathy McCann at International PEN Writers in Prison Committee, Brownlow House, 50/51 High Holborn, London WC1V 6ER, Tel.+ 44 (0) 20 7405 0338, Fax: +44 (0) 20 7405 0339, email: cathy.mccann@internationalpen.org.uk

 

Source: RAPID ACTION NETWORK (RAN) 11/07

Posted: 2 March 2007

24 January 2007

Stop the Deportation of Iraqi/Kurdish Asylum Seekers

Demonstration 4pm - 6pm

Home Office - Wednesday 24th January

2 Marsham Street

London

SW1P 4DF

Another Charter Flight

The Home Office are planning to remove failed asylum seeking Iraqi/Kurds by 'Charter flight' in the very near future, they have refused to give the date of the planned flight. The Immigration & Nationality Department (IND) would only say: 'Removal is to be effected by charter flight. For reasons of operational security it is not the policy of the Immigration Service to disclose logistical information about such removals but we anticipate removal will be before the end of February.' Then says 48 hours notice will be given.

 

The Home Office is continuing to arrest and detain failed asylum seeking Iraqi/Kurds across the UK with the intent to deport them.

Iraq is not safe for anyone, violence continues to spiral: UNHCR estimates that there are at least 1.6 million Iraqis internally displaced with at least another 1.8 million in neighbouring states.

Iraqi/Kurdish asylum seekers are the victims of war and an uncertain future.

Join us outside the Home Office to make the following demands:

o Stop the policy of enforced returns of failed asylum seeking Iraqi/Kurds  to northern Iraq.

o Release all detainees.

o Review cases of all who are still waiting and let treat them according to the European Human Rights law.

o Recognise that Iraq is not safe for anyone, and that people should not be returned there.

o Regularise the status of asylum seekers from Iraq to whom they have so far refused protection, by giving them leave to remain, and the right either to work or to decent levels of benefits, in line with the proposals made by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants in their document "Recognising Rights, Recognising Political Realities" published on 13 July.

We urge all organizations, human rights campaigners, refugee organizations and trade unions to support us and make every effort to end this inhumane policy of the Home office.

For further information:

Osman Fatah: 077 4616 6518

Burhan Fatah: 079 290 10257

Saman Sardam: 077 995 0714.

Send your emails to:

Dashty Jamal: d.jamal@ntlworld.com

Sarah Parker: sarahp107@hotmail.com

www.csdiraq.com

Posted: 23 January 2007

4 November 2006

Saddam will have automatic appeal if convicted to death

BAGHDAD - Fallen Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s sentence will be automatically reviewed by an appeals panel if he is convicted on Sunday of war crimes and sentenced to death or life imprisonment.

If these judges find grounds to question the judgment, Saddam will face another trial. If not, the sentence imposed this weekend by the Iraqi High Tribunal will stand and be carried out within 30 days.

Saddam and his seven co-defendants were put on trial for the killing of 148 Shiite civilians from the town of Dujail, where the then president escaped an assassination attempt in 1982.

Under the statutes establishing the tribunal in December 2003, both the defence and the prosecution have the right to appeal the verdict.

But any defendant sentenced to death or life imprisonment automatically sees the judgment and the verdict submitted to a panel of nine judges.

Such an appeal would need to focus on an error in procedure or non-respect for the law, and would be heard by the appeals bench of the tribunal.

A successful appeal would lead to a new trial.

“If Saddam is condemned to death, the defence will appeal,” Lebanese lawyer Bushra Khalil of Saddam’s defence team said Wednesday.

If the original verdict is upheld, however, the tribunal statutes say that the sentence must be carried out within 30 days, a fact confirmed by public prosecutor Jaafar al-Mussawi.

Mussawi’s office on June 19 asked for the death penalty for Saddam and two of his co-accused—his half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan al-Tikriti and former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan—for ordering the deaths of the Dujail civilians.

However Saddam has also been on trial since August 21 charged with ordering the Anfal Campaign in the Kurdish heartland of northern Iraq in 1987 and 1988 which resulted in the deaths of more than 180,000 people, prosecutors say.

“As for the other trials, the tribunal will judge those defendants still living, since those who have been executed can no longer be prosecuted,” Mussawi added in June.

The statutes state that no authority, not even the president, can pardon anyone convicted by the tribunal or commute their sentences.

People condemned to death in Iraq are hanged if they are civilians or go before a firing squad if they are members of the armed forces.

Saddam has made it known that he prefers the latter option if he is sentenced to die.

“Remember that Saddam was a soldier and that therefore, if he is condemned to death, he should be shot and not hanged,” he said on July 26, speaking of himself in the third person during his trial in Baghdad.

Posted: 5 November 2006

10 October 2006

Saddam's agents ran a human trafficking ring

A witness in Hussein’s trial says agents of the former dictator ran a ring that sold Kurds.

BAGHDAD - A witness in Saddam Hussein's genocide trial alleged yesterday that the ex-president's agents ran a human trafficking ring that "sold" his sister and other Kurdish women in the 1980s.

Defence lawyers and one of Saddam's co-defendants immediately challenged the charge as hearsay based on a forged document.

Saddam and six other defendants are on trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their roles in a 1987-1988 crackdown against Kurdish guerrillas. The prosecution says about 180,000 people, mostly civilians, died in the offensive.

Saddam and one other defendant also are charged with genocide in the crackdown, which was codenamed Operation Anfal.

Witness Abdul-Khaliq Qadir presented chief judge Mohammed Oreibi Al-Khalifa with an account published in an Iraqi Kurdish newspaper of a document purportedly showing the intelligence department in the city of Kirkuk had sold 18 women to Egypt's intelligence service. The document listed his sister's name and included women as young as 14, Qadir said. Defendant Sabir Al-Douri, who headed military intelligence under Saddam, told the judge that the purported document misidentified the intelligence service and was clearly a fake.

The witness spoke after Saddam accused the court of preventing him from defending himself. "When the accuser and prosecutor talk, the world listens. When the man called 'the accused' speaks, you switch off the microphone. Is this fair?" Saddam told Al-Khalifa, the chief judge. He was referring to Tuesday's session when Al-Khalifa switched off Saddam's microphone after he began shouting a verse from the holy Quran, the Islamic holy book. When the ex-president refused to stop, the judge threw him out of court. "You won't lose anything by listening. This is the duty of a judge," Saddam said yesterday, speaking calmly from the dock. The judge replied that he had cut Saddam's microphone to "bring order to the courtroom." "Clearly you wanted to give a speech when you started reciting a verse from the holy book," Al-Khalifa said. "You can talk if you want to defend yourself, but not to get into the political labyrinth."

Saddam and his co-defendants have been on trial since Aug 21. If convicted, the defendants could be sentenced to death by hanging.

Tuesday's raucous session was the fourth time that Al-Khalifa had ejected Saddam from the court since he became chief judge on Sept 20. He also ejected the other six defendants that day, but they were in court again yesterday. Defendant Hussein Rashid Mohammed protested to the judge yesterday that a bailiff had beat him a day earlier. "You say the court is Iraqi. Is it acceptable that a defendant is hit and sworn at in front of the judge?" asked the former army commander, who had punched a bailiff who forced back into his seat on Tuesday. "Everyone in this court is under my protection," Al-Khalifa responded.

Another witness yesterday provided testimony that was contradicted on at least two points. Razu Papapaya told the court that her husband went missing in the wake of an attack on her village 18 years ago. But Al-Douri, Saddam's co-defendant, told the court that documents show that she told her interrogators earlier that the husband, a Kurdish fighter, died battling Iraqi forces. She also recalled that a prison warder- named by other witnesses previously, called Hajjaj and an unnamed deputy assaulted prisoners.

The trial was adjourned until Tuesday.

Posted: 14 October 2006

18 August 2006

Saddam  faces genocide charges for 'massacre'

Baghdad - Deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein will be back in the dock on Monday to face charges including genocide relating to the darkest period of his rule, the brutal 1987-1988 repression of Iraq's Kurdish minority.

Since his overthrow three years ago by US forces, Saddam has already faced one trial over his alleged role in ordering the killing of 148 Shi'a villagers, for which he could face the death penalty.

The verdict in that case is pending, but prosecutors are now ready to press on through a portfolio of cases relating to his 24-year reign, focusing next on the "Anfal Campaign", during which at least 100 000 Kurds were killed and 3 000 northern Iraqi villages razed.

A panel of Iraqi judges sitting in the Iraqi High Tribunal will hear the case prepared by Iraqi investigators and their US advisers. The trial could last many months, and several more cases are expected to follow.

The chief trial judge will be a Shi'a Arab, Abdallah al-Ameri, according to officials at the tribunal's office in Kurdistan. The first judge in Saddam's previous trial dropped out after receiving threats, and three defence lawyers were murdered.

Chief prosecutor in the Dujail trial Jaafar al-Mussawi told AFP that he would open proceedings on Monday then hand off the prosecution to a three-lawyer team headed by the Iraqi lawyer Munkis Taklif al-Faraon.

Saddam and his six co-defendants will be defended by 12 defence counsel, while a 32-strong legal team will represent the rights of Anfal's Kurdish victims.

Prosecutors will seek to prove that in ordering Anfal - named after an Arabic term for "spoils" - Saddam was guilty of genocide.

The court will hear evidence that, under Saddam's orders, Iraqi troops set out to quell separatist sentiment among the Kurds living in the mountainous north by systematically targeting the civilian population.

Although Iraqi forces did face a counter-insurgency battle against Kurdish peshmerga fighters, they stand accused of deliberately concentrating their firepower - including poison gas - on Kurdish settlements.

Prosecutors will seek to prove that Kurdish civilians were herded into camps or controlled areas and that many fell victim to mass executions.

"Tellingly, the killings were not in any sense concurrent with the counter-insurgency," said the New York-based watchdog Human Rights Watch, in its detailed report into Anfal.

"The detainees were murdered several days or even weeks after the armed forces had secured their goals," the report said, arguing that this points to the campaign being genocidal in intent.

Six former senior officials are expected to face charges alongside Saddam, most significantly his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, who became notorious under the nickname "Chemical Ali" for ordering poison gas attacks.

In 1986, with the Baghdad regime weakened and distracted by its ongoing war with Iran, Saddam allegedly ordered Majid to suppress the Kurds, whose region was edging out of government control.

Between 1987 and 1988 at least eight offensives were launched to depopulate Kurdish areas and set up "prohibited zones" within which Kurdish civilians were harried, displaced and murdered.

Estimates for the total death toll vary between 100 000 and 180 000.

With Saddam and Chemical Ali, intelligence director Sabir al-Duri, Mosul governor Taher al-Ani, Anfal commander Sultan Hashim al-Tai, operations chief Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti and intelligence officer Farhan al-Juburi also face charges.

Aside from its value as a criminal trial, the Anfal investigation will have great political resonance in post-war Iraq, where the place of the Kurds is still not seen as a settled issue.

After Saddam's defeat in the first Gulf War of 1991, Kurdistan enjoyed near complete autonomy from the rest of Iraq, protected by a US-enforced ban on Saddam's combat aircraft in northern skies.

Now, the region is part of an Iraq governed by an elected coalition government of national unity - symbolically led by a Kurdish president - but with violence raging elsewhere in the country the future is uncertain.

Iraq's post-Saddam constitution allows for regions such as the three Kurdish provinces to amalgamate as autonomous federal units, but territorial disputes remain, notably over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

The trial may reassure Kurds that their new government is determined to punish those who committed crimes against them in the past, but it is also likely to re-open old wounds and remind them why they wanted to break away in the first place.

Posted: 20 August 2006

5 March 2005

Iraqis increasingly turn anger on insurgents

Shift in sentiment seen as violence inflicts more civilian casualties

BAGHDAD, Iraq - As more people lose loved ones to the relentless violence, Iraqis are becoming increasingly angry at insurgents, even staging public demonstrations condemning militants.

While it is impossible to precisely gauge public opinion, it is clear many Iraqis have grown tired of two years of insecurity, and some are directing their wrath at those behind the bombings and attacks.

“I demand that they be put in the zoo along with the other scavengers, because that is where they belong,” said Bassam Yassin, who lost his brother to an insurgent attack in Mosul. He spoke Wednesday after relatives of victims protested outside a police station in the northern city.

Iraq’s majority Shiite Arabs and ethnic Kurds have long criticized the largely Sunni Arab insurgency, portraying the militants as terrorists, loyalists of the Saddam Hussein regime and foreign fighters.

Public criticism from Sunnis

But the insurgents are now also being criticized publicly by prominent Sunnis, including opponents of the U.S. presence.

“The real resistance should only target the occupiers, and no normal person should consider dozens of dead people to be some kind of collateral damage while you are trying to kill somebody else,” cleric Ahmed Abdul-Ghafur told worshippers Friday at Um al-Qura, the main Sunni mosque in Baghdad. “Everybody should speak out against such inhumane acts.”

The growing anger was underlined this week in Hillah, a predominantly Shiite Muslim city south of Baghdad where a suicide car bombing on Monday killed 125 people — the deadliest single attack since Saddam’s ouster.

It touched a nerve in Hillah. More than 2,000 people chanting “No to terrorism!” demonstrated Tuesday outside the clinic where the bomber drove into a crowd of Iraqi police and army recruits, setting off an explosion that also killed civilians at a nearby market.

On Friday, hostility to the insurgency apparently boiled over into bloodshed in Wihda, 25 miles south of Baghdad. Townsmen attacked militants thought to be planning a raid on the town and killed seven, police Capt. Hamadi al-Zubeidy reported.

Anti-insurgency TV campaign

Anger against insurgents is being fed, in part, by a government television campaign. Last week, U.S.-financed Al-Iraqiya TV aired a series of reports showing men describing themselves as insurgents calmly talking about how they had beheaded dozens of people, kidnapped others for ransom and raped women and girls before killing them.

“People are realizing that the captured insurgents are not superheroes. They are timid people who kill for money and they have nothing to do with jihad,” said Karim Humadi, head of programming for Al-Iraqiya.

Insurgents have attacked Nineveh TV, Al-Iraqiya’s affiliate in Mosul, where most of the purported confessions were taped.

Last week, gunmen kidnapped one of the Mosul station’s anchorwomen, shot her four times in the head and dumped her near her home. The victim, Raiedah Mohammed Wageh Wazan, had called the insurgents “terrorists” on air.

The anger over deaths caused by insurgents does not always translate into acceptance of U.S. troops, who are still widely blamed for the chaos in Iraq. And many people support the insurgents, arguing they are fighting a just war to rid the country of U.S.-led troops who invaded in 2003.

Little acceptance of U.S. troops

“The Iraqi people are brave and won’t accept any foreigner on their soil. They will fight the occupation troops until force them to leave Iraq,” said Haitham Abdul Razak, who was a captain in Saddam’s army, which was disbanded by U.S. authorities.

Although American military deaths in Iraq passed 1,500 this week, they do not approach the toll among Iraqi civilians and their security forces. Bombings and other attacks killed more than 300 Iraqis just in February.

Groups like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaida in Iraq have made no secret that they hope attacks aimed at Iraq’s Shiite majority will provoke Shiites into a sectarian war with Sunni Arabs, who make up the core of the insurgency.

They hope such a war will mobilize the Sunni Arab community, thought to comprise 15 percent to 20 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people but who dominated under Saddam’s regime.

Yet the insurgents’ tactics are increasingly denounced by prominent Sunnis like Abdul-Ghafur, a cleric with the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, believed to have ties to insurgents.

“This is not the right way to drive the occupation out ... killing Iraqis is not the way to liberation,” he told worshippers. “We call upon those who have power over these groups to stop massacring Iraqis.”

The Associated Press, March 4, 2005
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22 February 2005

Kurds demand oil cash as prize for peace

From Anthony Loyd in Sulaimaniyah

BLOOD and grief marked the years that Shoresh Ismail fought for freedom from Iraqi rule. He was wounded seven times in the 1980s, when he was a commander in the Kurdish peshmerga irregulars.

More than half his volunteers were killed. His father was murdered and his brother shot by Iraqi agents outside Sulaimaniyah’s main mosque in 1986 for no other reason than his blood tie to Shoresh.

But since the fall of Saddam, the Kurds have enjoyed a calm and comparative peace that the rest of Iraq’s battle-fatigued people would envy. Nowhere is this more obvious that on the streets of Sulaimaniyah, where life is almost back to normal.

Now 48, Mr Ismail is director of the Establishment for Martyrs of the Kurdistan Revolution, a pension scheme funded by the Kurdish regional government for the families of killed peshmerga. Every day he hears stories of torture, execution and disappearance, which are all too common among northern Iraq’s 5 million Kurds. But at least the people can speak out without fear of retribution.

He has as much reason as any Kurd to hope for independence, but that is not his priority.

“Independence is still a wish for all of us,” he said, “but reality comes first. It is a time for negotiation and the creation of a new Iraq that guarantees Kurdish rights within the constitution.”

Kurdish nationalism continues to concern those trying to unite Iraq, but most Kurds remain pragmatic after the elections gave them 77 seats in the 275-member National Assembly, a powerful voice that will be enhanced if Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader, becomes president.

“We are landlocked,” Muhammad Tawfiq, a leading member of the politburo for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said. “We have to be realistic. What we want is Iraq to remain secular and a parliamentary democracy, Kurdistan to exist in a federal set-up and for human rights to be guaranteed.”

Such reasonable tones are underlined by the experience of the Kurds in the past decade. While the rest of the country has been racked by violence and criminality, the Kurdish region has remained an oasis of comparative liberalism and peace under its own functioning administration.

Contention remains over the issue of Kirkuk, however, which sits on 40 per cent of Iraq’s oil reserves. It is regarded as Kurdish, but lies outside the borders of the three provinces controlled by the regional government. Kurds want it back, along with other disputed territories such as Khanaqin. Neighbouring countries such as Turkey, fearing that it will allow Kurds an economic platform for independence, are determined that it remains outside Kurdish control.

The Kurds have proposed that Kirkuk’s oil remains a national Iraqi asset and that in return Kurds should receive a percentage of Iraq’s overall oil revenue proportional to their population.

The Kurds say that the future of Kirkuk and Khanaqin must be decided over the summer and publicly backed by the National Assembly before the new constitution is drawn up.

“All we say to the Arab political parties is ‘give us a good constitution, give us our disputed territories and give us a good federalism and we’ll sell the idea to the Kurdish people’,” Mr Tawfiq said. “But as for Kirkuk, if we aren’t happy we’ll block the constitution.”
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15 February 2005

Police clash with pro-Ocalan protestors in Turkey

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Feb 15 (AFP) - 14h42 - At least 18 people were injured and 70 others detained across Turkey Tuesday when police clashed with Kurdish activists at demonstrations marking the capture of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan six years ago.

The most troubled protest was in Diyarbakir, the central city of the mainly Kurdish southeast, where 15 people were hurt and 55 others taken into custody.

"End the isolation," read banners held by a crowd of some 300 activists, referring to Ocalan’s solitary confinement on a prison island in northwestern Turkey since his capture in Kenya on February 15, 1999.

Kurdish activists have long been calling for Ocalan’s transfer to an ordinary jail, but their appeals have so far fallen on deaf ears in Ankara.

Police moved on the demonstrators, using truncheons and tear gas, when they refused to disperse after reading out a press statement and demanded to also stage a march and a sit-in.

The injured included policemen hurt by stones hurled by the crowd.

In Istanbul, riot police sprayed pepper gas on a crowd of several hundred people who attempted to march to the Greek consulate to denounce Greece’s role in Ocalan’s capture.

The protestors responded by throwing stones which they dismantled from the pavement, breaking also the windows of several buildings nearby.

Turkish agents nabbed Ocalan in Nairobi after he was forced to leave the Greek embassy there, where he had been offered refuge for several days while on the run.

Police allowed a small group to lay a black wreath outside the consulate.

In the western city of Izmir, protestors armed with stones and molotov cocktails and chanting pro-Ocalan slogans also clashed with the police, leaving three people injured and one in custody, Anatolia news agency reported.

In Mersin, on Turkey’s southern coast, riot police, backed by an armored vehicle, disrupted a demonstration in which the protestors set bonfires in the streets, television footage showed.

Fourteen people were detained, the NTV news channel reported.

Ocalan, the leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), was condemned to death in June 1999, but his sentence was commuted to life in prison in 2001 following Turkey’s abolition of capital punishment as part of reforms to embrace European Union norms.

The PKK waged a bloody armed campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey between 1984 and 1999, with the conflict claiming some 37,000 lives.

The rebels ended a five-year unilateral ceasefire with Ankara last June.

AFP
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9 February 2005

Asylum children to face returns

The UK Government is planning to return asylum seeker children without parents to Albania. The trial scheme, which could start in weeks, may be extended to apply to children from other countries. Children's charities have reacted with alarm, saying the policy amounts to forcible removal and may not gaurantee the safety of those affected. But the Home Office says it may be in the children's best interests if it reunites  them with their communities.

Ceefax
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7 February 2005

MARK THOMAS

Remzi Kartal: Arrested without reasonable cause

In December 2002 the NS held a luncheon for Professor Noam Chomsky, then visiting the UK for the Kurdish Human Rights Project. Amongst the guests was the former Kurdish MP Remzi Kartal. Over the years many diners at the NS should perhaps have been arrested (cue polite and mention Charles Clarke) and some, such as myself, indeed have. However Remzi Kartal is the last person one would expect to find imprisoned, as he now is, as a guest of the German authorities.

Like many Kurds, Kartal fled repression not from Saddam Hussein¹s Iraq but from Turkey. He had been elected alongside other Kurds to the Turkish Parliament. They were promptly vilified, detained and attacked, including his colleague Lalya Zana, who was awarded the Shakarov prize by the EU while in prison. In 1994, Belgium granted Kartal refugee status.

Remzi is known internationally for his campaigning for a democratic and peaceful solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey. In 2002 the European Court of Human Rights, ruled against Turkey and in favour of Kartal and 12 others, under Article 3 of Protocol 1. Turkey was yet again found to be a torturing nation, and Kartal was paid 50,000 Euros compensation.

So why did the German authorities detain him? Because Turkey asked them to. Turkey has put his name on Interpol¹s terrorist list, becaue he has apparently been named by two of the suspects held for the al-Qaeda bomb attack in Istanbul in November 2003. I can say for certain that Kartal is no more involved with al-Qaeda than the Queen is.

He was arrested on 22 January during a visit to Nuremberg for  a Kurdish cultural festival. The legal grounds to extradite him to Turkey are shaky, especially after the case of Nuriye Kesbir, a self-confessed member of the PKK guerrilla group. When Turkey sought to extradite her in January a Dutch court decreed that it would break international law because the Dutch could not rely upon Turkish guarantees that she would not be tortured (cue polite coughing and mention Charles Clarke.)

He was arrested because Turkey put his name on the terrorist list with Interpol, on the basis that he has apparently been named by two of the suspects held for the Al Qaeda bomb attack in Istanbul. I can say for certain that Remzi no more involved with Al Qaeda than the Queen is.

It had been hoped that Turkey¹s proposed membership for the European Union might lead to an improvement of its disastrous track record, especially in the areas of democracy and treatment of minorities. However, only in December last year Turkey sought to confound that optimism by disbanding the ground breaking Torture Prevention Group, seizing files and computer data with many victims details on them. Remzi¹s arrest shows that rather than enter a meaningful dialogue to achieve a peaceful and democratic solution to the Kurds problems Turkey has chosen to attack Kurdish leaders at home and in the million strong diaspora in Europe. Turkey claiming to defend democracy from terrorist attack while furthering its own draconian measures. But to be fair, Turkey can¹t be singled out for that. (Cue polite coughing andŠŠ)

IMPORTANT ACTION:  Please add your name to the signatories of the OPEN LETTER to the German Authorities (below) and note that Mark Thomas will be speaking at a public meeting hosted by Lord Rea "Free Remzi Kartal - stop criminalising the Kurds" on Wednesday, 23 Februey, 7pm at the Committee Room 3A, House of Lords, Westminster (St Stephens Entrance). For more information call Estella on tel 020 7586 5892 or 020 7250 1315

Open Letter to the German Government :

Free the Kurdish politician Remzi Kartal  - No Extradition to Turkey

We have learnt with dismay of the arrest of Remzi Kartal, a former DEP (Democracy Party) MP in the Turkish Parliament, vice-chair of KONGRA-GEL (Kurdistan People¹s Congress). He was detained by the German authorities at the request of Turkey on 22 January while he was on a visit to Nuremberg to attend a cultural event.
    Remzi Kartal is a prominent Kurdish politician who has been active in Europe, working for a democratic and peaceful solution to the Kurdish question, since escaping from Turkey in 1994. His fellow DEP MPs Hatip Dicle, Leyla Zana, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak, imprisoned for daring to speak Kurdish in the Turkish Parliament, were only recently released after a major international campaign.
    Remzi Kartal is widely known to politicians and other public figures across Europe as a result of his tireless work lobbying for a peaceful political solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey. He is a well-respected  and well-liked figure in the Kurdish movement and amongst friends of the Kurds. His  detention is an attack on the legitimate political struggle of all the Kurds.
    His current arrest seems likely to be a consequence of the mid-January meeting in Ankara between representatives of the US, Turkey, and the Iraqi interim government. One agenda item was Turkey¹s insistence that the US take firmer steps to eliminate the 5,000 KONGRA-GEL guerrillas based in the mountains of South Kurdistan (Northern Iraq) and that the EU act against the Kurdish organisation¹s representatives in Europe.
     US and Turkey have consistently urged European governments to take stronger measures against KONGRA-GEL and its supporters among the Kurdish million-strong diaspora in Europe. We ask you to resist this pressure, not to participate in this process of criminalisation of the Kurdish people and in the persistent foiling of attempts to find a political solution to the Kurdish question.
     It is not yet known what charges Remzi Kartal may be facing, but he remains in detention for maybe as long as 40 days in Germany while the authorities await a formal written request from Ankara for his extradition.
     Remzi Kartal has refugee status in Belgium. If the German authorities were to ignore the protection afforded him under the refugee law of another country, that would be a flagrant breach of international law. And only recently on 20 January the Dutch Court of Appeal refused for a second time the Dutch government¹s request to extradite well-known Kurdish activist Nuriye Kesbir on the grounds that Turkey¹s guarantees that she would not be tortured were not to be relied upon. The same would be true of Remzi Kartal if he were to be extradited to Turkey.
     By taking the step of arresting Remzi Kartal, Germany is only making it harder to achieve a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question, while at the same time harming the attempts to democratise Turkey and encouraging the continued use of torture, human rights violations, and Turkey¹s policy of assimilation, denial and annihilation towards the Kurds.

We urge you to release Remzi Kartal immediately and refuse any request for extraditon to Turkey in the spirit of peace, democracy and reconciliation.


Signatories

Lord Avebury
Sarah Ludford MEP
Lord Rea
John Austin MP
Rudi Vis MP
John McDonnell MP
Lord Dholakia
Jean Lambert MEP
Bruce Kent, CND
Mark Thomas, comedian/broadcaster
Hugo Charlton, Chair Green Party
Jenny Jones, Green Member of the London Assembly
Andrew Gilchrist, FBU Gen Secretary
George Galloway MP
Prof Ken Coates, Bernard Russell Peace Foundation
Liz Fekete, author
Frances Webber, barrister
Michael Ellman, FIDH, lawyer
Nicholas Hildyard, writer
Jonathan Bloch, councillor
Les Levidov, academic/researcher
Dr Med Nesmil Ghassemlou, Germany
Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, Leader of The Muslim Parliament
Maggie O¹Ronayne, academic, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
Hans Branscheidt, Mezopotamian Development Society
Dr Haluk Gerger, writer
Saleh Mamon, Sutton for Peace and Justice
Harmit Athwal, Campaign Against Racism and Fascism
Hagir Ahmed, Peace and Progress
Alex Fitch, student/researcher
Fred Grace, White Night Films
Sarah Parker, Respect
David Morgan, journalist
Onay Kasab, UNISON trade union Greenwich
Alain Hertzmann, AMICUS trade union
Mark Campbell, Coordinator Kurdistan Community Centre
Etti Brink, German Center teacher
Rochelle Harris
Pranjali Achaviya
Adem Ay
Lochlinn Parker
Andreas Gavrielidies, Greek-Kurdish Solidarity Committee
Rachel Bird, human rights campaigner
Ciara McGarrity, designer
Rebekah Cairns, writer
Anoop Sagar, businessman
Salil Chowdhary, businessman
Mark Fulham, IT consultant
Akif Bozat, Kurdistan National Congress UK
Arzu Pesmen, Chair Kurdish Federation UK
Ibrahim Dogus, Chair Halkevi
Zeynep Karakas, Roj Kuridsh Women¹s Group
Elam Guler, Roj Kurdish Women¹s Group
Isil Guler, Kudish Federation UK
Ali Manaz, journalist
Sait Akgul, Respect EC (personal capacity)
Kurdi Rodi, student
Kameel Ahmadi, media worker
Hikmet Tabak
Azize Asan
Melike Asan
Zaide Asan
M. Sahpaz

Information: Peace in Kurdistan Campaign
fax 020 7250 1317 tel 020 7586 5892
estella24@tiscali.co.uk
_______________________________________

30 January 2005

An Independent Kurdish State will be formed:

By Nail Kadirhan and Hasan Ozkal

Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Massud Barzani has said that “Kirkuk is a Kurdish city, with a Kurdish identity.”

Barzani was responding to questions from journalists in his headquarters at Salahaddin.

In reply to a question from a journalist regarding Kirkuk, Barzani said the following:

’’Kirkuk is an Iraqi city. Kirkuk is a Kurdish city, with a Kurdish identity. Neither Turkey nor any other country has any right to say anything about Kirkuk or about any other Iraqi city. What they say is of no concern to us. Such words do not bind us. These things will not be resolved with threats. An independent Kurdish state is indeed going to be established, but I do not know when it will be established. The preference of the people of Kirkuk will become clear following the election. A referendum will be conducted in accord with the desires of the people.”

Elections

Stating that he is hopeful for Iraq’s future, KDP leader Barzani said that the best solution for Iraq would be a federation. Barzani spoke as follows:

“I am not a candidate, but I am working for the well-being of the Iraqi people. I hope that the Kurdish people will be represented in the best way possible. We have, as Iraq, problems ahead of us. But we are seeing that these problems are slowly being overcome. And this is encouraging. We want to see what the preference of the Iraqi people will be as a result of these elections. We have learned that there is a great participation in the election in Kirkuk and Mosul. I am very hopeful regarding the future of Iraq. There will be a democratic, federal Iraq. Some groups in addition to us also want a federation in Iraq. We support this. This is the best solution for Iraq.”

Barzani also made it known that a security guard had lost his life in an attack made against the deputy governor in Mosul, and said that there had also been others injured in the attack.

Barzani added that, in spite of everything, citizens should go to the ballot boxes to cast their votes.

Translated from Turkish by KurdishMedia.com; originally appeared in the online edition of the Turkish daily Milliyet on the 30th of January 2005

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27 January 2005 

Kurds campaigning in Iraq at full force

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) Farhad Sangawi, Kurdistan’s best-known newscaster, used to whip up nationalist sentiment among Kurdish militiamen fighting Saddam Hussein’s army in the 1980s. Now he says its time to put weapons aside and go to the ballot boxes.

Campaigning in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region is in full force with political leaders holding almost daily meetings with tribal leaders. Advertisements fill local Arab and Kurdish newspapers, while billboards show the slogans of secular and religious political parties.

Iraqis are scheduled to vote Sunday for a 275-member National Assembly and provincial councils. Iraqi Kurds will have an additional job to do elect a local parliament in their autonomous region in the northern provinces of Sulaimaniyah, Irbil and Dohuk.

The elections will be a chance for Kurds to gain more influence after decades of oppression and marginalization under the Baath Party that ruled the country for 34 years.

The two largest groups in the autonomous region, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, have formed a coalition with two smaller groups, the Islamic Union Party and the Communist Party in Kurdistan, guaranteeing a majority of seats in the 111-member Kurdish Parliament.

Unlike other Iraqi provinces where fear of attack by Sunni insurgents has limited campaigning, Kurdistan has been relatively quiet. It has not been under Saddam’s rule since the 1991 Gulf war.

Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh said in a speech last week in the town of Halabja, where Saddam’s cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali, killed 5,000 Kurds with chemical weapons, that ’’these times are over and forever.’’

’’We will bring Chemical Ali to put him on trial here,’’ Saleh said receiving a huge applause.

After years as a political refugee in the West, Sangawi, the newscaster, returned to his homeland shortly after the fall of Saddam’s regime in April 2003. Since his return to the ethnically-mixed city Kirkuk, the 42-year-old has worked with PUK, the group he supported for decades.

’’The era of revolution and weapons is over. The dream of our martyrs and the future of our children is linked to your vote,’’ Sangawi said. ’’Through parliament seats and new constitution we can get the demands and rights of our people.’’

Kurdish militiaman Salar Jalal, 45, who fought Saddam’s forces during the Anfal campaign in the 1980s in which 182,000 Kurds were killed, said ’’Farhad Sangawi’s voice was our power when we fought against a large army.’’

’’He helped us resist a dictatorial regime like that of Saddam Hussein. Now he is the power that pushes us to go vote,’’ said Jalal.

Saddam’s 23-year rule was a nightmare for Kurds, thousands of whom were buried in mass graves during brutal campaigns against them. Since Saddam’s ouster, Kurdish leaders have focused on influencing political decisions in Baghdad with the aim of reinforcing autonomy in their northern provinces.

Kurds now hold senior government posts, such as deputy prime minister and army chief of staff, as well as several ministries such as Human Rights and the Foreign Ministry.

Iraq’s first lady Nesreen Mustafa Berwari is a Kurd.

Associated Press - By Yahya Barzanji
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24 January 2005

Keep this Family in Safety

UK Immigration Service took Lorin Sulaiman, 14 years old, her 16-year-old sister Eva and their Mum Amina, from their house in