Red Prison: a place for remembrance

“The freedom we have achieved was not free”

Walking into the Red Prison in Suleimaniya city enlightens visitors of the cruelty of Saddam Hussein and his plan to wipe out the Kurdish nation.

Inside Red Prison Museum, a Kurdish film crew is shooting a well-known and important Kurdish drama series called “Gardalul” (Whirlwind). Some of the actors are dressed in security uniforms from Saddam Hussein’s time; others are dressed in traditional Kurdish uniform. Those in security uniforms are torturing those dressed in traditional uniforms, using various types of torture adapted from other countries.

“Gardalul” is based on Saddam’s oppression of Kurds. He had people randomly killed and arrested. He destroyed Kurdish villages, made people disappear, and allowed the rape of women in prison. Kurds have seen two seasons of “Gardalul,” and impatiently await the third and possibly final season. “The aim of making this drama is to show the new generations Saddam’s cruelty so that they will never forget,” said Jalil Zangana, director of the series.

One of the most important locations in “Gardalul” is the Red Prison, or the “Amna Suraca” in Kurdish. Construction of the Red Prison began in 1979, the design of the building made from East of Germany. The Iraqi government initially falsely claimed that the building was for an agricultural college. The people of Suleimaniya bought the rumour until 1984, when the building was completed and taken by Iraqi security forces. Suleimaniya residents coined the term Red Prison, but Ako Gharib, director of the Red Prison Museum said it is a mistake to call it that, as it was much more. “It was the Baath Party’s headquarters in Suleimaniya province, [built to] wipe out the Kurdish nation,” said Gharib. He was a guerrilla for 23 years, and he spent that time fighting the Iraqi government.

Gharib said the compound consisted of several departments. The Security Department for Economy worked to destroy the infrastructure in the province. The Political Department was meant to destroy the Kurdish revolution, and the Culture Department was built to eradicate Kurdish culture. Moreover, inside the compound was a prison or--it is better to say--a department to torture people and coerce them to falsely confess. Those detainees were sent to prisons in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities.

The torture department was comprised of three sections: men’s, women’s, and children’s. “Thousands and thousands were tortured and then sent to prisons in Iraqi cities. And then they despaired forever,” said Gharib. In the early 1980s, the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein initiated the Anfal Campaign to wipe out the Kurdish nation. Kurds claim that in the campaign more than 182,000 people were arrested and disappeared forever, and more than 4,000 villages were destroyed. After 2003, the remains of some of the missing were found in mass graves in southern and middle Iraq.

Gharib noted that these compounds were built in the Kurdish provinces to conduct the Anfal Campaign. There were similar Iraqi regime security compounds in Erbil, Duhok, and Kirkuk provinces. The day of the Kurdish Uprising against Hussein’s government in 1991, these compounds came under attack by Kurdish people and fighters. The security compounds in Erbil and Duhok were flattened, and the Suleimaniya security compound is the only one that still exists—although now as a museum.
After the uprising, the prominent Kurdish female politician and Iraqi First Lady, Hero Ibrahim Ahmed, decided to preserve the Red Prison so that it would remain part of Kurdish history. And only recently did she turn it into a museum. Parts of the premises of the Red Prison have been untouched and remain as it did the day after the uprising. Bullet holes pock the walls. Only in one building is there no sign of bullet, and that would be in the torture department building.


“People and Kurdish fighters knew that there were prisoners inside the building; that’s why they did not attack it,” said one of the Red Prison employees who works as a guide.

The museum is classified into several sections. The torture section shows how security members of Saddam Hussein’s regime tortured people. The culture section exhibits Kurdish culture, and a weapons section shows different kinds of weapons used in the history of Iraq to wipe out the Kurdish existence. A cinema shows documents about the Anfal Campaign and Kurdish Genocide. Gharib said there is a plan to open another department to collect and preserve documents related to Anfal.

The Red Prison attracts both local and foreign visitors. “I am here so that I don’t forget the brutality of the Iraqi regime, and to remember that the freedom we have achieved was not free,” said Abdullah Ali, visiting the Red Prison with his wife.