Shafaq News/ Acting Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, Mohsen Al-Mandlawi, highlighted on Saturday the tragic history of the Feyli Kurds under the former Iraqi regime.

During the annual memorial ceremony for Feyli Martyrs Day, organized in collaboration with the Martyrs Foundation, Al-Mandlawi condemned the "severe injustices and persecutions faced by the Feyli Kurds, including the revocation of their citizenship, displacement, deportation, persecution, confiscation of assets, imprisonment, executions, and torture." emphasizing the need to "address the negative impacts of these past atrocities on the rights of Feyli Kurds."

"Government and international data confirm the staggering toll, with over 20,000 martyrs and 130,000 displaced Feyli Kurdish families documented between 1980 and 1981."

Earlier, the Kurdish President, Nechirvan Barzani, called the Iraqi Federal Government to provide compensation to the Feyli Kurds, "encompassing their citizenship and assets, in line with the ruling of the Iraqi High Tribunal that classified the crimes perpetrated against them as genocide. Our commitment to addressing their problems remains unwavering, and we stand ready to offer assistance as needed."

"The genocide against the Faili Kurds and the relentless efforts to obliterate and perpetrate atrocities against the people of Kurdistan represent a somber chapter in Iraq's history, marred by grievous errors…It is imperative that we learn from these harrowing experiences and transform them into valuable lessons, fostering a future of harmony and acceptance in Iraq."

On Friday, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) bloc in the Iraqi parliament urged the federal government to restore "all rights" of the Feyli Kurds, including money and properties that were confiscated during the former regime's rule.

In the statement, the bloc recalled the "painful memory of the genocide of thousands of Feyli Kurds forty-four years ago, highlighting the atrocities they endured, such as killings, arrests, displacement, persecution, citizenship revocation, and asset confiscation, solely based on their Kurdish identity and support for the Kurdish people's revolution against the regime."

The bloc stressed the need for the federal government to address these "historical injustices by compensating the Feyli Kurds in every aspect, restoring their dignity, and granting them Iraqi citizenship, which was unlawfully taken from them."

"The genocide of the Feyli Kurds mirrors the regime's broader crimes against the Kurdish population, characterized by violence, destruction, displacement, and disappearances."

Furthermore, the bloc called for vigilance to prevent the "recurrence of such atrocities and paid tribute to the Feyli Kurds' martyrs and all victims of Iraq's troubled history."

Feyli Kurds are an ethnic group that historically inhabited both sides of the Zagros mountain range along the Iraq-Iran border.

According to the Minority Rights Group, Today, the estimated 1.5 million Faili Kurds in Iraq live mainly in Baghdad, as well as the eastern parts of Diyala, Wasit, Maysan, and Basra governorates, as well as in the Kurdistan region. 

During Saddam Hussein's regime, which spanned nearly three decades, thousands of young Feyli Kurds were forcibly relocated to undisclosed destinations, their fates shrouded in uncertainty, with indications suggesting that many perished in custody or were subjected to extrajudicial executions and buried in mass graves.

The Ba'athist regime initiated a concerted campaign in the late 1970s and early 1980s to uproot the Feyli Kurds, stripping them of their Iraqi citizenship and seizing their assets. They endured deportation, displacement, arrests, and executions during the tenures of former Presidents Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr in 1970 and 1975, followed by Saddam Hussein in 1980.

In 2010, the Supreme Criminal Court rendered its verdict on the crimes of displacement and confiscation of rights perpetrated against the Feyli Kurds, unequivocally designating them as acts of genocide.

In December 2008, the case concerning the Feylis was forwarded to the Iraqi High Criminal Court. Following 44 hearings in 2010, the court officially recognized the genocide of the Feylis.