Feyli Kurd icon Barzo: A life of Iraqi resistance

Shafaq News

3 days ago

Shafaq News/ From Baghdad's backstreets to the mountain frontlines of Penjwen, the life of Muhammad Hassan Barzo reads like a quiet epic of resistance. A Feyli Kurd born into marginalization, Barzo emerged as a central figure in Iraq's Kurdish political awakening—his legacy still echoing decades after his assassination in 1973.
Born on July 1, 1923, on King Ghazi Street (now al-Kifah), Barzo came from a Feyli family that had migrated from Ilam, Iran, seeking security and stability. He began his education in Kuttabs (traditional Islamic schools), but his nationalist awareness was awakened by his cousin, intellectual Mohammad Khosrow. Immersed in Arabic and Persian writings on history and identity, Barzo's political consciousness took root early.
In the 1940s, he joined the Hiwa (Hope) Party. When security crackdowns intensified, he fled to Iran, only to return in secret to Baghdad, where he discreetly organized within the Feyli community. As an accountant in Shorja market, Barzo quietly mobilized support among merchants and craftsmen for the Kurdish cause.
A turning point came on August 16, 1946, when Barzo helped found the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), a leading party in the Kurdistan Region, in a clandestine meeting in Baghdad's Abu Sifain neighborhood. Inspired by the Mahabad Republic, the group gathered in two adjacent rented houses to avoid detection. His role in this milestone placed him at the center of the modern Kurdish political movement.
Barzo's activism extended beyond politics. He co-founded the Grand Feyli Mosque in Bab al-Sheikh and led the Feyli Sports Club, blending civic empowerment with cultural organizing. These efforts, however, drew hostility from rival groups, particularly Communist Party sympathizers.
In 1952, the Kurdish activist and young Jalal Talabani were assigned to rebuild KDP youth cells among Feyli Kurds. During the 1961 Kurdish uprising, Barzo sheltered party secretary Ibrahim Ahmad in his Baghdad home before helping him escape to Kurdistan. After a renewed crackdown in 1963, Barzo vanished into the mountains, taking an administrative post in Penjwen, where he coordinated services for residents.
By the late 1960s, his activism crossed borders. He allied with Iranian opposition leader General Teymur Bakhtiar and became a vocal critic of the Shah. Through Al-Tariq newspaper and multilingual broadcasts, Barzo denounced Tehran's repression of minorities and exposed the brutality of SAVAK, the Shah's intelligence agency.
Publishing in Kurdish, Persian, Arabic, and Azeri, he became a rare voice bridging ideological and ethnic lines. His criticism of the 1969 deportations of Feyli Kurds enraged both SAVAK and Iraq's Baath regime.
Despite mounting threats, Barzo refused exile. On July 22, 1973, he was shot near al-Wathba Street, close to his boyhood home. His body was left in the street, with only 600 fils (less than a dollar) in his pocket.
Kurdish movements condemned the murder as a 'political execution.' But among Feyli Kurds, Barzo came to symbolize more than martyrdom—he stood for principled defiance. He rejected privilege, stood with students, workers, and tradespeople, and poured his life and livelihood into a cause that never fully recognized him.
Muhammad Hassan Barzo represented a generation of Feyli Kurds who fought on two fronts: asserting their presence in Baghdad and resisting authoritarianism at home and abroad. Though he never lived to see the fruits of his struggle, his convictions and sacrifice remain etched in Kurdish collective memory.