Rainbow murals painted over in Sulaimani park for promoting LGBTQI+ rights

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A group of volunteers on Tuesday started painting the pavements of Sulaimani’s Azadi Park aiming to promote coexistence and equality on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. The art project took three days to finish, but only a few hours to be completely covered up by the park’s management.

The pavements of Sulaimani’s decades-old park were embellished with bright and warm rainbow colors, a reference to the park’s name and its tragic history. Azadi Park, Kurdish for freedom, is where Iraq’s Baath regime mass murdered Kurds and buried them on the grounds it stands on today.

The art on the paving sidewalk did not explicitly portray a certain group or individuals but showcased rainbow colors, a sight many people often grow up seeing in children’s books. The murals soon became a hot topic on social media with locals claiming the paintings were made to support the LGBTQI+ community.

Hawar, a civil society activist, was among the group of 15 to 20 young volunteers and activists who had come up with the idea earlier in May, aiming to honor the park’s history and what it stands for.

“We wanted to do something general, to draw something that promotes coexistence and love,” Hawar told Rudaw English on Saturday in a phone call. “Azadi Park is a symbol for freedom and has historical significance, and that is why we chose it.”

Hawar and her friends spoke to the park authorities over the week heading up to the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia observed on May 17. The team later received the approval to paint one of the park’s pavements.



The group did not mention that their work was to promote and stimulate interest in LGBTQI+ rights while pitching their idea to the officials of the park. According to Hawar, their idea was not to advocate for anything explicitly, but rather a work of art. 

Hawar and her colleagues started their work on Tuesday, cleaning their designated space and starting to paint the pavement that would be their work venue for the next three days.

“The head of the park later came to see it and despite having a different idea of what should have been done, he appreciated our work,” Hawar said.

But the appreciation was short-lived. 

Photos of the paintings broke social media on Thursday night.

A Kurdish page titled Shwan Kurd with over 184,000 followers posted a picture of the paintings early Friday morning calling on Muslims in the city to be “aware of a campaign aiming to corrupt the morals of Kurdish Muslim community,” and calling on religious clerics to discuss the topic during their Friday prayers, using a derogatory term for homosexuality in Kurdish. 

Following the large social media campaign, Hawar received a phone call from the park’s management on Friday, telling her that they had to remove the paintings on that day. 

“I told them I needed until Saturday to gather volunteers and we could agree on something, but they said if we did not go that same day then they would erase it themselves,” Hawar said. “This was the result of three days of hard work by young volunteers. We spent from our own pockets to buy the materials.”

Rudaw English reached out to the park’s manager, who claimed that the group had not received an approval for their art project, contrary to Hawar’s statements, and copy of a signed document obtained by Rudaw.

“They came forth as volunteers to do art,” Alan Burhan said. “If the colors had been mixed, there would have been no problems.”

When asked about why they had initially agreed to the paintings, Burhan simply said they did not know about the idea behind them.

“We listened to people on social media, we did not have any idea that the rainbow represented homosexuals,” he said while referring to the community in a derogatory Kurdish term. “Erasing it has made the majority of people happy.”

Members of the LGBTQI+ community in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region are often persecuted by security forces and conservatives. They are subject to arrest, verbal abuse, and even murder.

A few kilometers away from Azadi Park, murals meant to encourage coexistence and acceptance of the LGBTQI+ community have repeatedly been vandalized after nightfall.

However, those murals had previously been defaced by random people, while this time it was by an official government institution. To Hawar and many like her, this sends a scary message.

“This city is known for diversity and culture,” Hawar said, referring to Sulaimani. “That is where it is scary, this is not coming from random people, it is coming from an official stance.”

According to her, such acts not only ruin the spirit of acceptance, but also create a sense of hesitance for young people to try and do something similar voluntarily in the future. 

Human Rights Watch (HRW) in March called on Iraqi and Kurdish authorities to take measures to end violations against members of the country’s LGBTQI+ community, adding to numerous other calls from rights groups over the years which have gone unanswered. 

The crimes committed against the community range from gang rape, extra judicial killing, sexual violence, abduction and online harassment by individuals and groups according to the HRW report which is based on 54 interviews with members of the Iraqi LGBTQI+ community.

HRW, at the time, annexed a response from the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) coordinator for international advocacy to the rights watchdog in the report.

“With regards to the alleged police abuse of the LGBTQ community, any law-enforcement officer who abuses his or her authority in maintaining order will be punished by law,” Dindar Zebari said in the letter, adding “no such incidents have been reported.”

Zebari added that the Kurdistan Region “remains a safe haven for the exercise of individual and group freedoms,” while adding that the government and civil society “should coordinate their efforts to consolidate and protect essential values and the rule of law.”

However, despite Zebari’s claims of the Region being a safe haven, anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments are prevalent all over the Kurdistan Region and are shared by some of its most educated and powerful people. 

Last year, Kurdistan Justice Group (Komal) MP Omar Gulpi filed a lawsuit against Rasan Organization, a non-profit human rights organization which advocates for LGBTQI+ rights in the Region. Gulpi called homosexuality a “sickness.” 

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