BAGHDAD, Iraq — Faili Kurds are angry at the Iraqi government for not dedicating their quota seat in Baghdad, where most live, but instead in the province of Wasit.
"It feels as if they have expelled us from Baghdad. They tell us Baghdad is not your place, but Wasit province," Hamid Rashid, a Faili candidate for the next round of the Iraqi parliament, told Rudaw.
The Faili Front has fielded 22 candidates. Wasit is a province southeast of Baghdad. It borders Iran.
"Our quota must have been in Baghdad. The vast majority of us live in Baghdad. Our jobs, houses and children are all in Baghdad," Rashid criticized.
Faili Kurds are Shiites who have mainly lived in southern Baghdad and some of the disputed areas on the southern edge of the Kurdistan Region. They have been exiled, threatened, and killed for decades, especially during the previous Baath regime.
Some of the Faili residents of the Kifah neighborhood in Baghdad said they were disappointed with authorities in Erbil and in Baghdad, claiming both sides have disowned the Failis and they aren’t defended in the Iraqi parliament.
"Faili Kurds are at a crossroads in which neither Kurds nor Arabs represent us, none of which give our rights. We do not know with whom we should side. We have lost trust in everyone," said Khidir Abbad.
Abdulkarim Ahmed, another Faili echoed Abbas's views.
"We have endured mounting oppressions as Failis. We wish we could send a person to the parliament to support us. We have seen a lot of oppression," said Ahmed.
There is no official data to indicate the size of the Kurdish population in Baghdad, particularly for Failis. The number of Faili Kurds in all of Iraq is estimated to be between 200,000 and 250,000.
In the 1970s under Iraqi President Ahmed Hassan Bakir, oppressions against Kurdish Failis started. When Saddam Hussein came to power, ethnic cleansing against them peaked.
In the early years of 1980, a massive campaign to capture Faili youth took place and many families, numbering 600,000, were forcedly deported to Iran. They were not allowed to take their identification papers with them on the pretext of originally being foreigners in Iraq.
Additionally, thousands were killed. In total, as many as 1.4 million Failis were stripped of their citizenship and deported to Iran between the 1960s and 1980s. After the overthrow of Hussein’s regime, fewer than 15,000 have returned. Today many Faili Kurds still do not have citizenship documents in Iraq.
The Iraqi High Criminal Court declared Faili Kurds victims of ethnic cleansing on November 29, 2010.
Tariq Mandalawi, a Faili fielding candidacy with the Fath Coalition, mainly comprised of former Hashd al-Shaabi military commanders, urged the Failis to unite for the election so they could win a seat.
"I am calling on the Faili Kurds to all reintegrate in order to win a seat," Mandalawi said. "Neither the Kurdish nor Shiite MPs have advocated our rights in the parliament."
This is the first parliamentary election in Iraq that has allocated a quota seat for the Failis.
