Amna Suraka
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Amna Suraka ( ar, آمنة سوراكا،, ku, مۆزەخانەی ئەمنە سوورەكە, lit=Red security, red prison) is a museum in
Sulaymaniyah Sulaymaniyah, also spelled as Slemani ( ku, سلێمانی, Silêmanî, ar, السليمانية, as-Sulaymāniyyah), is a city in the east of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, not far from the Iran–Iraq border. It is surrounded by the Azmar, Go ...
,
Kurdistan Region Kurdistan Region ( ku, هەرێمی کوردستان, translit=Herêmî Kurdistan; ar, إقليم كردستان), abbr. KRI, is an autonomous region in Iraq comprising the four Kurdish-majority governorates of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok, ...
of Iraq.__NOTOC__


Prison

From 1979 to 1991, during
Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
's rule in Iraq, Amna Suraka was the northern headquarters of the Da'irat al-Amn/Directorate of General Security, the Iraqi Interior Ministry's intelligence agency, colloquially referred to as just Amn. Many people were imprisoned there, especially students, Kurdish nationalists, and other dissidents. Many were tortured and raped. During the 1991 Battle of Sulaymaniah Iraqi security officials and soldiers retreated to the Amn headquarters which served as the Baathist stronghold in the city and held off rebels for nearly two days until the prison was captured by
Peshmerga The Peshmerga ( ku, پێشمەرگه, Pêşmerge, lit=those who face death) is the Kurdish military forces of the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. According to the Constitution of Iraq, the Peshmerga, along with their security subsidiaries, ...
forces, following a 2 hour long assault. Rebels summarily executed 300 Amn agents, with angry civilians killing many others. One group of mothers whose sons had been killed at the compound stoned and axed to death 21 Iraqis. In total, between 700 and 800 secret policemen and soldiers were killed, although many conscripts were pardoned and allowed to return to their homes in the south by KDP chief Massoud Barzani. The building has many bullet marks from that battle.


Museum

In 2003, a museum was opened at the site for documenting the human rights abuses under Saddam's rule. The museum is free to attend, open six days a week, and mostly funded by the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK; ku, یەکێتیی نیشتمانیی کوردستان, translit=Yekîtiya Nîştimanî ya Kurdistanê) is a political party active in Kurdistan Region and the disputed territories in Iraq. The PUK describe ...
, a political party, and has also received funding from the Talabani family and the Qaiwan Group. The museum exhibits include mannequins demonstrating how people were tortured in the prison and a hall of broken mirrors with 182,000 shards commemorating Kurds killed during the genocidal
Anfal campaign The Anfal campaign; ku, شاڵاوی ئەنفال or the Kurdish genocide was a counterinsurgency operation which was carried out by Ba'athist Iraq from February to September 1988, at the end of the Iran–Iraq War. The campaign targeted ru ...
, with 4,500 backlights to represent the Kurdish villages destroyed during the campaign. There is also another exhibition on Anfal, with pictures of exhumed bodies and the names of prominent Kurds who were killed or disappeared. A later exhibit is on Peshmerga fighters killed by
ISIS Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...
. At the museum, the history of human rights abuses is used in a narrative of
Kurdish nationalism Kurdish nationalism (, ) is a nationalist political movement which asserts that Kurds are a nation and espouses the creation of an independent Kurdistan from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Early Kurdish nationalism had its roots in the Ottoman ...
. According to Autumn Cockrell-Abdullah, the museum attempts to "constitute the Kurds as a nation and nation-state and to demarcate the boundaries of a Kurdish national identity" by memorializing human rights abuses against Kurds. In 2013, ''
Vice News Vice News (stylized as VICE News) is Vice Media's current affairs channel, producing daily documentary essays and video through its website and YouTube channel. It promotes itself on its coverage of "under-reported stories". Vice News was create ...
'' reporter Orlando Crowcroft called Amna Suraka "the world's most depressing museum", as well as the biggest tourist attraction in Sulaimaniyya.


References


Further reading

*Fischer-Tahir, Andrea. 2012. “The Concept of Genocide as Part of Knowledge Production in Iraqi Kurdistan.” In Writing the Modern History of Iraq: Historiographical and Political Challenges, edited by Jordi Tejel, Peter Sluglett, and Riccardo Bocco, 227–244. Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific.


External links


Official website
{{Coord, 35, 33, 44, N, 45, 25, 32, E, display=title Museums in Iraq Sulaymaniyah Human rights in Iraq Kurdish nationalism in Iraq Human rights museums Museums established in 2003 2003 establishments in Iraq