CPTnet
28 May 2012
IRAQ REFLECTION: A moment for the martyrs

by Carrie Peters

This is the story of Sardasht Osman. On 5 May 2010, his body was found, shot, outside the city of Mosul. He had been abducted from outside his university two days earlier, in front of a crowd of witnesses.

Sardasht, twenty-three, was in his final year studying English at university in his home city of Hawler (Erbil in Arabic). The prospective journalist already had articles published in newspapers and websites. His final opinion piece, “I Am in Love with Massoud Barzani’s Daughter,” criticized the KRG president’s wealth in biting satire. “If I become Massoud Barzani’s son-in-law,” he wrote, “we would spend our honeymoon in Paris and... visit our uncle’s mansion in America. I would move... from one of the poorest areas in Erbil to... [Barzani’s palace complex, and]... be protected by American guard dogs and Israeli bodyguards.” He continues, “All my friends said, ‘Saro, let it go and give it up or you will get yourself killed. The family of Mulla Mustafa Barzani [Massoud Barzani’s father] can kill anyone they want, and they surely will.’ ”

And it appears they did. The official report, issued later that year, declared that Sardasht had been in league with an extremist group that killed him after he could not meet their demands. His relatives and colleagues consider this rubbish. Sardasht was abducted in Hawler. His body was found handcuffed and shot in Mosul a city with a lot of violence and an al -Qaeda presence. Voicing widespread suspicions of official involvement, Kurdish and international observers have called for an independent investigation, but the authorities never launched one.

On the second anniversary of Sardasht’s murder, CPTers joined 150 people, including journalists, at his gravesite. Laura and I, the female team members, met with the family’s women.  As I lightly shook the hands of Sardasht’s aunts, sisters, cousins and mother, I could find no words. I felt like an interloper.

Some of them smiled sadly; all of them met my eyes. I tried to impart through my gaze the terrible compassion I felt. I tried to say, “I’m so, so sorry, and your son is not forgotten.”  I don’t know how to offer solace for something like that. I don’t even know if I should.

Even though, felt like an interloper, I don’t think I was perceived as one. After the services, Sardasht’s father and brother said how grateful they were that we’d come, that there were internationals here watching and remembering, too.

So it occurs to me that I can tell Sardasht’s story to an audience that likely has never heard of him, tell about his life and his death, about how he is remembered, and how journalists under the KRG are still risking their lives every day to report the truth.

Here in Iraqi Kurdistan, before a meeting or gathering, it is traditional for everyone to rise and stand in a moment of silence, a moment for the martyrs.

Let’s have a moment, then, for Sardasht Osman.

Video: “Sardasht Osman - We Will Not Forget”