CPTnet
10 May 2011
IRAQI KURDISTAN: April Update

Members of the team participated in Holy Week and Easter services with the Christian communities of St Joseph Church in Suleimaniya and Virgin Mary Church in Kirkuk.  Both conducted ceremonies team members had not encountered before.

The two-hour Holy Friday service in Suleimaniya ended with a funeral procession that featured a board covered with flowers being shouldered from the front of the sanctuary down the aisle and out the front door.  Afterward Muslim neighbors shared with the team their belief that Jesus had not really been crucified but rather someone had taken his place at the final moment

Easter morning service at the Chaldean Church in Kirkuk

The early morning Easter service in Kirkuk featured a role-play during the festive celebration.  Two priests challenged and pushed at each other up and down the center aisle for ten minutes of give and take, each in turn reciting a charge to the other.  The contest ended when one of the priests withdrew a cross from underneath his vestments and subdued the other who knelt in submission.

The warmest moment came after the Easter service had ended.  The team was standing with others outside the church building.  Many persons came to greet and welcome them.  One woman  approached the team with a gracious on her face, exclaiming, “Merry Christmas!”

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The team continues to keep the vulnerable fate of the border villagers before Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Parliamentarians, government officials, and the public awareness.  Since no attacks had affected these border residents recently, the team worked to prevent any disruption of village life along the borders of Turkey and Iran with Iraq for the entire year.

In the regional capitol of Erbil/Hawler, the team conducted an action at the entrance to KRG Parliament facilities with banners, posters, and a flyer with a message and a photo of Internally Displaced Persons in the riverbed camp they were forced into last spring.  At the Turkish and Iranian consulates, also in Erbil/Hawler, the team explained that suspending attacks on villages for the entire year would be a courageous and compassionate response by powerful governments to the challenges they recognize in the continuing struggle to secure their national sovereignty.

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The team followed several sessions of the trial of Ibrahim Kaka Hama who was arrested on the charge of inciting the killing of a policeman during a demonstration in Halabja on 20 March 2011.  The team composed an open letter urging judicial officials to let prevailing evidence expeditiously dispose of the case.  The team distributed the letter to more than 500 contacts but it received little attention by the media.  Later the team learned that the Ministry of Justice had instructed the media it should “not report any concerns about the trial that arose from within the community, as it would complicate the trial process.”

At the ninth sitting, the court did make a final ruling: Kaka Hama was pronounced “not guilty” and returned to his family and home town of Halabja, where he entered into the drama of processing the seven months he had spent in prison without any evidence to support his arrest.

Sunnah's schoolgirls explain to a team member the features of the local landscape

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The team arranged a follow-on visit to the border village of Sunnah.  Residents, teachers, and students eagerly welcomed them and gave ample resources for the team’s video project to highlight the lives the village children disrupted by the bombing and shelling of villages near the border.  While there, team members could hear a few blasts in the mountains nearby.  At one point Turkish fighter jets suddenly roared overhead, and a calm community suddenly braced for the possibility of having to endure yet another violent intrusion into their cherished and otherwise serene lifestyle.

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The Human Rights Committee of the KRG Parliament honored the promise they had made during a meeting with Kaka Bapir, the Basta village mayor, and the team  in January.  They completed the long and rugged journey to the village of Basta in the Pshdar district that borders with Iran.  For seven consecutive years, attacks by Turkey and Iran have forced residents of Basta and nearby villages to evacuate their homes, leaving behind them maturing crops and flocks and herds of animals. Residents explained to committee members the tragic consequences of their absence from their homes during this critical growing season.  They pleaded with parliamentarians to work to provide them security so they might safely continue their chosen way of life throughout the entire year.

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On 23 April, the team responded to a request to accompany a community activist to the one-year anniversary memorial service for a demonstrator slain in a protest in Suleimaniya last spring.  She thanked the team for attending the event with her and commented, “I would not have come here by myself.  There are many others who would like to be here also but they are afraid they would be arrested if they were present.”