Country: Iraq

Group: Faili Kurds

Date Finalized: 9/21/2021

Team: Natasha Chandra (lead), Zaida Arellano Reyes, and Li-Chen Hou

Content Warning: religious persecution; targeted violence

Approximate Time Period: 1924-2003

In 1924, the Iraq government started a century-long process of displacing Faili Kurds’ out of the country (Minority Rights, 2017).

The Faili are an ethnic group residing in the Zagros Mountain range along the Iraq-Iran border. They speak a dialect of Kurdish. They are Shia Muslims, unlike the majority of Kurds who are Sunni Muslims. In the early 1900s, the Iraqi government implemented a Nationality Law that classified Faili Kurds as second-class citizens. In 1963, when the Ba’ath Party came into power, they fashioned new laws based on the 1924 Nationality Law that formally stripped Faili Kurds of their citizenship (Minority Rights Group, 2017). In 1968, a second Ba’ath coup led to the government beginning deportations of Faili to Iran (Minority Rights Group, 2017). In 1971, over 40,000 Faili Kurds suffered replacement to Iran (Minority Rights Group, 2021). At the end of the 20th centuries, about 220,000 to 500,000 Faili Kurds were deported (Campbell, 2010; Kinsley, 1991; Najari, 2021;). After the U.S.-led removal of the Ba’ath regime in 2003, the persecution of the Faili Kurds has ceased (Minority Rights Group, 2021). There were about 100,000 individuals who had their citizenship reinstated from 2003 to 2010 (Campbell, 2010).

Sources    

  1. Campbell, E. (2010, April 2). The Faili Kurds of Iraq: Thirty Years Without Nationality – Iraq. ReliefWeb. https://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/faili-kurds-iraq-thirty-years-without-nationality
  2. Kinsley, S. (1991, March 11). Whatever happened to the Iraqi Kurds? Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/reports/1991/iraq/
  3. Minority Rights Group. (2021, February 6). Faili kurds. https://minorityrights.org/minorities/faili-kurds/
  4. Najari, K. (2021, April 4). US commemorates anniversary of genocide against Faili Kurds by former Iraqi regime. K24. https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/24217-US-commemorates-anniversary-of-genocide-against-Faili-Kurds-by-former-Iraqi-regime