January 2, 2006

Since the start of its invasion of Iraq and the forces of occupation has been working tirelessly in to curb of all forms of freedom of though and speech and basic protection for human rights in direct contradiction to its own pre-war declarations which is now seen as a mere war propaganda. We will not fill these pages with the names of academics who have been systematically assassinated and murdered since lists of their names, respective qualifications, and the way in which they were murdered can be found on numerous internet websites. The case of Dr Kamal Sayid Qadir, one of Irbil City’s bright men, is one example of the robbery of the right of free thought that is now rife in Iraq under occupation. Dr Qadir was abducted and subsequently sentenced to 30 years in prison because of a few articles he wrote and published!

In its report entitled 'Iraq: Kamal Sayid Qadir, Age48, Austrian Citizen, Writer’, numbered MDE2005/046/14 and dated 30/11/2005, Amnesty International described 'Dr Qadir, an Austrian citizen, was abducted by the Partisans, the Mukhabarat services belonging to the Kurdish Democratic Party, one of the two ruling parties in Iraqi Kurdistan, whilst he was visiting the predominately Kurdish region of Iraq. He is not being held in total isolation from the outside world. AI is seriously concerned that Dr Qadir has been subjected to torture and mal-treatment. Dr Qadir has been denied access to lawyers, and to the best of AI’s knowledge, he has not been charged nor allowed to see any member of his family.’

It has also been reported the Austrian President had brought up the case of Dr Qadir with the President of Kurdistan, the leader of the KDP, Massod Barazani, when the latter attended a conference in Austria, 20/11/2005. It was also reported that Mr Barazani had given assurances to the Austrian President that Mr Qadir will receive an fair trial. In addition, AI had written to the Mr Barazani on the 3/11/2005 requesting information on the plight of Dr Qadir and to what had become of him; AI is yet to receive a response.

The next announcement by AI is that 'Dr Qadir had been given a 30-year prison sentence on the 19/12/2005 for slander, and precisely because of two articles he wrote and published on the internet, in which he criticised the KDP leadership. He was sentenced by a special security court in the city of Irbil in a case lasting one hour. Dr Qadir was informed of the sentence a few minutes prior to the start of the trial by a lawyer appointed by the court and whom Dr Qadir had never met previously. It has been reported that the judge read out his sentence immediately once it was established that Dr Qadir had written the two articles. AI has learned that Dr Qadir has gone on a hunger strike in protest against his crime of speaking his mind, and that his health had deteriorated to the point where he demanded to see a doctor. However, the prison administration has ignored his pleas’.

The author has read the work of Dr Qadir in an attempt to understand the fears of Mr Barazani, the President of Iraqi Kurdistan, from Mr Qadir: was it the fault in the 'free speech’ that enraged the President, or was it the tyrannical leader who cannot stand free speech? Why does Mr Barazani fear a personal opinion when he puts himself across to the world as a democratic leader elected by a popular majority, who has been working tirelessly with Mr Talabani, the leader of the other ruling Kurdish party, and transitional Iraqi President, to build an American style democracy in Iraq? How did the printed words of free speech threaten the existence of a strong leader to the point where secret agents working for his party were sent to abduct the writer who was brave enough to document his personal opinion? Was the danger really in two articles Dr Qadir wrote, or was the process of writing an alternative opinion that may provoke people into thinking? Did Mr Barazani, for example, hear of an American writer who published an article or a report against Mr Bush, who subsequently had him arrested? Or did the words of Dr Qadir had come too close the truth that tyrannical leaders do their outmost best to hide from their own people?

In his article dated 14/7/2005 discussing the hurdles of in the path of Iraqi federalism, Dr Qadir describes what he sees as the reasons driving the Kurdish parties towards federalism. He wrote that these demands 'are not without selfish conflicts and own interests, in that the Kurdish leadership, an in particular the leadership of the two main parties, have tired the sweet taste of power alone and enjoyed economic privileges of great deal and often in illicit ways. This power and privileges cannot be maintained without a federalist Kurdish entity which cannot be scrutinised by the federal government of Baghdad. On the other hand, as a sovereign state, the Iraq state will guarantee the Kurdish leadership protestation from the interferences by the neighbouring countries which will prohibit any move towards the establishment of a fully sovereign Kurdish state in the future. In addition, Iraqi Kurdistan has great wealth in natural resource, which the Kurdish leadership wishes to convert into its private and personal property. This cannot be achieved unless the current Kurdish Cartels ruled the Kurdish region itself and alone, as is the case at the moment’.

Did Dr Qadir pay the heavy price of 30 years of his life because of this opinion? Perhaps it was his other opinion which he published in his article called 'the winner and loser in Iraq’s new constitution’, dated 4/8/2005, in which he describes the condition under which the constitution was written and produced were not natural because 'the overthrow of the former Iraqi regime did not occur by Iraqi hands; and that the foreign forces, which had achieved the regime overthrow under the banner of "Liberation of Iraq" from tyranny and oppression, became itself forces of occupation which does not differ in its behaviour, practices and actions to any other force of occupation in history. Thus, the democratic process which was subsequently forced upon the forces occupation, carries non-Iraqi fingerprints that increase the doubt amongst the Iraqis to the true impetus behind this process’.

Dr Qadir, an academic lawyer by profession, analyses the drawn political plans for Iraq by taking it apart piece by piece and provoking the reader to focus on the factual events that had taken place, saying 'there are those who accuse the Iraqi Sunnis of partnering the old regime in suppressing the Shia and Kurds. This in my opinion is a false accusation because dictatorships don’t know religions, sects, and/or ethnicity; only allegiance to the dictator himself. It is a true fact that some of the closest to the former Iraqi dictator were Kurds, Shia, and Christians; indeed, many Kurds, who were loyal to the former regime, were involved in the genocide crimes in the AlAnfal operation against the Kurds. To this, there is a great deal of evidence available in visual, audio and written forms; as well as the testimonies of surviving witnesses from those crimes of genocide. In addition, there is no denying the greater share of suffering of the Iraqi Sunnis because of the military adventures of the former regime against the neighbouring countries in which many thousands had fallen dead’. Dr Qadir believes that the Kurdish leadership failed, despite the availability of the perfect opportunity, to 'transform Iraqi Kurdistan into a model democracy for Iraq, or even the Middle East, because, instead, the Kurdish parties transformed Iraqi Kurdistan into a fortress for oppression, theft of public funds, and serious abuse of human rights like murder, torture, amputation of ears and noses, and rape. All this was conducted under American protection because the Kurdish parties, and others in the region, know too well that all the privileges and gains achieved since 1991 by the Kurdish parties were impossible without direct American backing and support. Indeed the Americans, who had established and directly protected the safe heaven in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991, and after the fall of the former regime in April 2003, were behind the rewarding of the Kurdish parties further privileges in the form of a federal region and a bigger share of Iraqi budget, which no one knows where it went and how it has been spent to this date’. Dr Qadir concludes after the presentation of various examples that 'all evidence point to a great deal of Kurdish loss in the next political battle, and all that will remain in the hands of the Kurdish parties is a general referendum which will dictate the future of the Iraqi Kurdish region. However, the current Kurdish parties cannot risk using this weapon because of the likely opposite effect it may have which will result in their losing their grip on power. In the true reality, the so-called Kurdish parties are made up of a number of families which control the Kurdish people by the use of force, and the political and economic dividends they enjoy from this control is far more important to them than Iraqi Kurdistan and/or the Kurdish people.

So what was the crime committed by Dr Kamal Qadir? Was it the academic research into the corruption of the semi-autonomous Kurdish state? Or was it his discussion on the manner by which the constitution was written? Perhaps it was his demands for conducting an official and genuine referendum which will determine the future of Iraqi Kurdistan?? Did this make the Kurdish leadership fear Dr Kamal Qadir??
---
Alquds, 31/12/2005