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Andam Omar, like many young men in their twenties, enjoys the ever-developing face of Erbil, the de facto capital of Kurdish Iraq. At the new—and expansive—Tablo Mall he bowls, poses for pictures by a miniature air hockey table, and eats popcorn. Yet on Wednesday, Andam Omar, faced the limits of that modernity when he was pulled from a police truck by his belt for snapping photos of a passing protest.
Omar is a member of the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU), a charity organization with an intellectual foundation similar to the Muslim Brotherhood and monetary ties to the regional Red Crescent and several other organizations. The KIU is a reformist party, but one with charity roots. Its members are representative of wider Kurdish society; their primary goals are “freedom, fraternity, and justice.” Kurdistan is seeing a dramatic shift, which is unfolding as rapidly as its Gulf-like industrialization. It is going from an icon of Iraqi stability, security, and development to an unsettled region with mass protests and sporadic violence.
Much of this recent simmering conflict revolves around Kurdistan’s ‘friendly brothers’, the KIU alliance of Muslim social organizations. With five members in Parliament, the KIU is more of a bit player. Its supporters are attracted by the alternative to the power structures the region currently offers, and especially one that denounces the use of violence. It helps that the KIU also runs health clinics, youth clubs, and has several media outlets across Kurdistan.
Yet much of the recent protests—what government officials have described as “riotous behavior”—is tied to the dynamic within the two-party system of the Kurdistan Regional Government. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) is the older of the two parties dominating the Kurdistan region. Founded by Mostafa Barzani, the organization was a response to the monarchies in Iran and Iraq, and aligned itself with leftist-nationalist struggles, garnering support from the former Soviet Union. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) was founded in 1975 by a rival family of Kurds, the Talabanis, who supported socialist causes and were disenfranchised by the KDP leadership. Jalal Talabani, the current President of Iraq, was a founding member of the PUK.
In 1994, the rival parties fought an intense civil war—so intense that simply wearing yellow KDP colors or green PUK colors could single you out for cross-party attacks. Political tensions have eased slightly since the fractious war, with both parties ruling Kurdistan jointly through the Kurdistan Regional Government.
However, the region suffered fissures earlier this year when a PUK faction, Gorran, challenged the political dominance of both parties, driving people to the streets in protests against the two-party monopoly.
While the KIU has been less overtly political, it is said to garner wide popular support. The KIU has good relations with Christians and Yazidis, and is generally viewed as a more religiously inclusive party. It could challenge the PUK and KDP on this platform; however, the KIU has been at the center of a controversy following what government officials are calling a ‘fiery sermon’ given after Friday prayers at a mosque in Zakko on 2 December.
[caption id="attachment_55228158" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="A demonstration on the streets of Zakko"]
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According to government accounts, Mullah Ismael Othman of the Rahid Mosque reportedly incited youth to protest lax public morality. In the northern towns of Zakko and Dahok, near the border with Turkey, they took to the streets and burned massage parlors and liquor stores. KRG President, Massoud Barzani says that the Imam's actions "were a clear incitement to violence" but that there was a failure to control the situation afterwards on the part of the KRG security forces.
Those who know Ismael Othman tell a different story. They describe him as the elderly imam of the local mosque, and say he has never incited any member of his congregation to civil unrest, much less violence. In fact, according to Hawalti, a regional newspaper, Mullah Othman is actually an enemy of the KIU and supports the KDP. He admitted to speaking about the massage parlor near the Rahid Mosque, but did not encourage attacks on the parlor or any other areas of the city.
Whatever might have caused the unrest, events soon spiraled out of control and the KIU’s media outlets were attacked and burned in Zakko and Dahok. Amateur footage on YouTube shows what appears to be KDP security officers, setting alight a carpet or a piece of cloth before entering the building. Seconds later, smoke is seen billowing from the building.
Following the fire, KIU members were rounded up. Over 50 were arrested in Zakko alone, and reports have surfaced of detained KIU members being tortured. Nineteen members have since been released, but another 32 are still thought to be in jail, according to the KURDIU website, a KIU media outlet and one of the main online portals for Kurdish news. Andam is not discouraged yet, "We will remain defending the rights of our people in a peaceful and civil manner, this is how we were brought up and what we have taught ourselves to believe in" he told Al-Majalla.
[caption id="attachment_55228161" align="alignleft" width="290" caption="Smoke rises over Zakko"]
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Journalists and others covering the violence are facing an intense backlash. Government forces have turned on them as they cover the events, which is bad news for press freedom in this purportedly stable and democratic region of Iraq. An Al-Jazeera crew was beaten; journalists from Khabir Radio, Speda TV, and the KURDIU website were arrested while covering the protests.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a novel occurance for Iraq. It’s a familiar tale involving longstanding rivalries and power plays that mimics, even if only slightly, the power structures that existed under Saddam Hussein. It also parallels events in 2005, when Kurdistan witnessed similar unrest that led to the killings of four high-ranking KIU members and several buildings belonging to the KIU being burned. reporters sans frontiers just put out a statement against media violence in Kurdistan. Ahmed Mira, Director of Sulaymaniyyah-based magazine Livin told Kurdistan Times that "The situation still proves that the dominant parties in Kurdistan are influenced by a culture of violence".
Similar protests arose earlier in Sulaymanniyah this year, as people took to the square in the city looking for reform and chanting in favor of the Gorran Movement. The Gorran Movement was born in reaction to the KDP and PUK monopolies in governance. Bolstered by the upheavals in Arab states against dictators like Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Gorran, a splinter faction of the PUK, mobilized supporters around their disenfranchisement and their frustration with the political system. Protests were broken up violently, however, with dozens wounded and seven reported killed.
Rumors now are swirling that protests are likely to envelop Erbil this weekend, especially after Friday prayers that have recently been triggering similar protests at Tahrir in Cairo, Kesserine in Tunisia, and Dera’a in Syria. The KDP has been noticeably more present on the streets over the past few days, patrolling in convoys. For now, there is only a stalemate between the KDP and the KI; though it is a stalemate heavily weighted in the favor of the KDP.
In recent days, profile photos on Facebook—avatars showing pictures of youth in front of Iraq’s scenic mountain expanses or at bright stores in malls—are one by one falling away and being replaced by the national emblem for the KIU. While the malls are still operating, packed with people shopping and eating in the run-up to the weekend, there was one less shopper, and presumably many more missing from sidelines of the indoor skating rink or by the air hockey table: Andam and many of his compatriots.
