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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Kurdish actor says she was stopped twice by members of Kirkuk's security forces who demanded she remove a Kurdistan flag she hangs in her car.
A video of the second encounter shows Awara Khan moving through a temporary checkpoint at the Ikhwan intersection in Kirkuk. The Kurdish flag is displayed over the dashboard of her car. Two members of the security forces are seen, one of them is speaking Kurdish, and the second in Arabic.
"It is forbidden," one of the officers says in Arabic. "It is an order from the Prime Minister. It is entirely forbidden," he continued.
"It is the blood of my family," she says in the video in reference to the Kurdistan flag. Khan has lost 10 members of her family during the rule of the former dictator Saddam Hussein including her father, a Peshmerga fighter, and two brothers.
"It is the blood of 200,000 people," she added, this time referring to the collective number of Kurds killed at the hands of the former Iraqi government including an estimated 182,000 who were killed or disappeared during the genocidal Anfal campaign.
Awara Khan said she always keeps the Kurdistan flag in her car, and wears a necklace with a map of Kurdistan colored with the Kurdish flag.
"He said remove it as it is forbidden. I said I won't. While I was in park mode, he stretched his hands to remove it. I did not allow it," said the actor. "I said 'I won't allow it, nor will I hand it over to you.'"
She said she was stopped for a period of about two hours before she was allowed to pass the checkpoint.
Rudaw contacted both the police and the command tasked with security in Kirkuk but they refused to talk about the incident.
The issue of the flag of Kurdistan has once again resurfaced in the disputed city after the election campaign for Iraqi parliament kicked off. One Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) official claimed over the weekend that the electoral commission had instructed authorities to ban the Kurdistan flag during the campaign, a claim denied by the election body in Kirkuk.
Shakhawan Abdulla, a candidate for the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Kirkuk, told Rudaw on Monday he was told by the security forces that the incident was the result of a misunderstanding.
"That issue varies per individual member of the security force," the KDP candidate said. "They are not instructed properly."
Kirkuk is part of the disputed areas claimed by both Erbil and Baghdad. The city was briefly under the control of the Kurdish Peshmerga between 2014 and 2017, but now falls under the control of federal Iraq.
A concerted effort under Saddam Hussein's Baath regime, mostly between 1970 and 1978, relocated Arabs from elsewhere in Iraq to Kirkuk, forcing out Kurdish residents. After 2003 and the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq began a policy of de-Arabization to reverse the demographic changes and land was returned to the original owners.
After 2017, when Kurds lost military and administrative control of Kirkuk following a bid for Kurdish independence, Kurds have said they are once again being forced off their lands, sparking fears of a renewed Arabization effort.
Kirkuk's provincial council voted in March 2017 to raise the Kurdistan flag over the state buildings, a decision condemned by the Iraqi government and was soon reversed as soon the city fell to Iraqi forces later that year on October 16.
A video of the second encounter shows Awara Khan moving through a temporary checkpoint at the Ikhwan intersection in Kirkuk. The Kurdish flag is displayed over the dashboard of her car. Two members of the security forces are seen, one of them is speaking Kurdish, and the second in Arabic.
"It is forbidden," one of the officers says in Arabic. "It is an order from the Prime Minister. It is entirely forbidden," he continued.
"It is the blood of my family," she says in the video in reference to the Kurdistan flag. Khan has lost 10 members of her family during the rule of the former dictator Saddam Hussein including her father, a Peshmerga fighter, and two brothers.
"It is the blood of 200,000 people," she added, this time referring to the collective number of Kurds killed at the hands of the former Iraqi government including an estimated 182,000 who were killed or disappeared during the genocidal Anfal campaign.
Awara Khan said she always keeps the Kurdistan flag in her car, and wears a necklace with a map of Kurdistan colored with the Kurdish flag.
"He said remove it as it is forbidden. I said I won't. While I was in park mode, he stretched his hands to remove it. I did not allow it," said the actor. "I said 'I won't allow it, nor will I hand it over to you.'"
She said she was stopped for a period of about two hours before she was allowed to pass the checkpoint.
Rudaw contacted both the police and the command tasked with security in Kirkuk but they refused to talk about the incident.
The issue of the flag of Kurdistan has once again resurfaced in the disputed city after the election campaign for Iraqi parliament kicked off. One Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) official claimed over the weekend that the electoral commission had instructed authorities to ban the Kurdistan flag during the campaign, a claim denied by the election body in Kirkuk.
Shakhawan Abdulla, a candidate for the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Kirkuk, told Rudaw on Monday he was told by the security forces that the incident was the result of a misunderstanding.
"That issue varies per individual member of the security force," the KDP candidate said. "They are not instructed properly."
Kirkuk is part of the disputed areas claimed by both Erbil and Baghdad. The city was briefly under the control of the Kurdish Peshmerga between 2014 and 2017, but now falls under the control of federal Iraq.
A concerted effort under Saddam Hussein's Baath regime, mostly between 1970 and 1978, relocated Arabs from elsewhere in Iraq to Kirkuk, forcing out Kurdish residents. After 2003 and the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq began a policy of de-Arabization to reverse the demographic changes and land was returned to the original owners.
After 2017, when Kurds lost military and administrative control of Kirkuk following a bid for Kurdish independence, Kurds have said they are once again being forced off their lands, sparking fears of a renewed Arabization effort.
Kirkuk's provincial council voted in March 2017 to raise the Kurdistan flag over the state buildings, a decision condemned by the Iraqi government and was soon reversed as soon the city fell to Iraqi forces later that year on October 16.
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