Iraq
The faces of some of the thousands of Faili Kurds who were killed by Iraq’s Baathist regime. The Iraqi government has declared April 2nd Faili Martyrs Day. File photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi government has named April 2 as a day to commemorate Faili Kurds killed by the former regime and the prime minister has directed all government institutions to observe a moment of silence on that day, a government advisor told Rudaw on Saturday.
“After I submitted a letter to the prime minister, in my capacity as advisor for Faili Kurd affairs, to make April 2nd of every year a day for Faili martyrs, he approved it and decided that a minute of silence would be held at ten o’clock on the morning on April 2nd of every year in all departments and institutions of the Iraqi state, including those in the Kurdistan Region,” said Tariq al-Mandalawi, advisor on Faili Kurdish affairs in the office of the Iraqi prime minister.
Faili Kurds have historically settled across the Zagros Mountain range and speak a distinct dialect of Kurdish, a sub-dialect of Luri. Unlike other Kurds who are mostly Sunni Muslims, Failis are Shiites, consequently they have been exposed to persecution, especially when the Baath party was in power in Iraq.
In the 1980s, Faili Kurds were stripped of their citizenship, their properties were confiscated, and many were deported to Iran. Over 22,000 Faili youth were executed.
In 2006, the Baathist-era decree was repealed and Faili citizenship was restored.
The Iraqi Supreme Court in 2010 considered the crimes committed against Faili Kurds and ruled they constituted genocide.
Today an estimated 1.5 million Faili Kurds live in Iraq, according to the Minority Rights Group.
There are no confirmed numbers on how many of the Faili Kurds have had their property returned to them or how many have gotten their renewed citizenship documents.
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