Baghdad marks Feyli Martyrs Day
Shafaq News/ Iraq's Feyli Kurdish community held a memorial ceremony in Baghdad on Friday to mark Feyli Martyrs Day, renewing calls for justice, implementation of court rulings, and increased political representation.
The event, held at the Monument to Feyli Martyrs, featured a wreath-laying ceremony and a photo exhibition documenting decades of persecution. Organizers urged authorities to enforce legal decisions related to displaced Feylis, restore confiscated properties, and address the revocation of citizenship for thousands of families.
Former judge Munir Haddad, head of the National Feyli Kurdish Movement, described the atrocities committed against the community as genocide and criticized the current level of representation, calling the allocation of one quota seat in parliament 'inadequate.' He also objected to the change in the official date of the memorial from April 4 to April 2, describing it as a 'distortion of historical truth.'
Baghdad Provincial Council member Amer al-Feyli said the event serves as a reminder of the mass denaturalization and forced displacement carried out under decree No. 666 by Iraq's former regime. Maher Rashid al-Feyli, leader of the Feyli Front, called for the enforcement of a 2010 ruling by Iraq's High Criminal Court recognizing the actions as genocide. 'The decisions exist, but institutions have yet to apply them,' he said.
Feyli Kurds, a Shiite Kurdish minority, were targeted by Saddam Hussein's regime in a campaign that included mass deportations, imprisonment, and executions. Historians have attributed the repression to both ethnic and sectarian motives.
Thousands remain missing, and many families continue to live in displacement, particularly in Iran.
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