Thousands protest against MP’s ‘disrespect’ to dead Peshmerga
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Thousands -- among them the son of the Kurdish president who heads the Special Forces -- turned out in protest Saturday after a female Kurdish MP said that widows of fallen Peshmerga live in such dire conditions that they are forced to “sell themselves.”
Since Srwa Abdulwahid, a Kurdish MP from the Kurdish Gorran (Change) Movement in the Iraqi parliament, made the comments in a TV interview on Tuesday, she has found herself in the eye of a public and political storm.
On Saturday, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Erbil near the ancient Citadel, condemning what they described as the MP's offensive language against the families of Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers, who are deeply respected in Kurdish society for a history of resistance against tyranny.
Kurdish pride and international recognition for the Peshmerga has grown immensely since mid-2014, when the soldiers became the most robust bulwark against ISIS expansion in Iraq. More than 1,600 Peshmerga have been killed in the fighting, including in the offensive to retake Mosul from the militants that began in mid-October.
"We do not accept from anyone disrespect to our martyred and their families," Mansour Barzani, son of Kurdish President Masoud Barzani and head of the Peshmerga’s Special Forces unit, told Rudaw TV as he demonstrated alongside the protesters on Saturday.
It was on a political program that focused on the Peshmerga and Iraqi budgets that Abdulwahid made the controversial remarks to Iraq’s Dijlah TV.
Peshmerga salaries that are the responsibility of the central government have gone largely unpaid for years because of disagreements between Baghdad and Erbil.
"Baghdad is punishing the Peshmerga, the ordinary Peshmerga," Abdulwahid said in the program. "I swear by God there are people who fight in the front line who do not have milk to give to their children, or food," she said.
"I swear by God there are tragic cases -- there are women who sell themselves to provide for their children after the martyrdom of their husbands,” she added, uttering the words that landed her in hot water.
In a statement on Thursday, Abdulwahid issued a clarification, saying her comments did not mean to refer to prostitution, as interpreted by Kurdish media.
“In my remarks I said the indifference and irresponsibility of the (Kurdish) parties vis-à-vis the people and the families of the martyred has reached a stage that even some of the spouses of the martyred are forced to sell themselves,” she said. “By sell I mean the debasing of the value, conscience and dignity of the martyrs and their families who, because of the current economic mismanagement and political rivalries, are forced to sell their conscience and dignity.”
"I did not use the word body and I did not discuss prostitution," she said in her clarification.
Before it came out of opposition and joined the government in 2014, one of Abdulwahid’s Gorran party’s campaigns was titled “I do not sell my conscience.” That was a reference to people refusing to support or vote for a political party in exchange for cash or material benefits.
On Thursday, the Peshmerga ministry warned it would not brook any offense to dead Peshmerga soldiers.
Anybody who "offends the blood of the Pehsmerga" will no longer have any "legal or political immunity," it warned.
Abdulwahid alleges that she is the target of a media campaign orchestrated by the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) against her for political reasons.
Political rivalries in Kurdistan intensified after angry protesters stormed and torched several offices of the KDP across Sulaimani province last October, in a series of violent demonstrations that sent shockwaves through the region. Since then, no serious attempts were made at reconciliation.
Following the violence, the KDP announced it would no longer recognize Gorran member and Parliament Speaker Youssef Muhammad. The parliament has remained paralyzed since then.