The video shows a large Kurdistan flag laid across a road cutting across the American University of Iraq campus in Sulaimani, as cars drive across. It went viral on social media on Tuesday as thousands of university students took to the streets of Sulaimani calling for the reinstatement of a government allowance that has been cut for seven years.
By Wednesday, students in Sulaimani had been protesting for the fourth day in a row and, despite several students being affected by the extensive use of teargas by security forces and violence being used against the students with some injured with rubber bullets and electric batons, the video of the flag drew the largest criticism from officials in the Kurdistan Region.
The KRG soon went on to condemn the video in a press conference on Wednesday.
“Disrespect under any label to the symbols and pride of the Kurdistan Region is not acceptable, sadly in the protests in Sulaimani a number of impulsive people disrespected the Kurdistan Region flag,” KRG spokesperson Jotiar Adil said in a press conference.
“This is sadly not the act of any person with a patriotic sense or anyone that believes in the Kurdish cause, as the Kurdistan Regional Government we strongly condemn this act,” he added.
The video even became part of the parliamentary discussion on Wednesday, with several MPs condemning the act, and the parliamentary speaker saying it required an investigation.
“I say that in this round of the parliament, if we want to record an achievement for the parliament, we should pass a law that stops any party or person to give themselves the right to step on the symbols of a nation,” Sawsan Mohammed, a Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) MP said, adding that those who do so “should be punished in the strongest way”.
However despite the condemnation, the video seems to be from February 2020 and the KRG and the parliament seem to have been misled by the tribulations of “fake news” in the social media era.
One of the people that appears in the video spoke to Rudaw on Wednesday, denying that the video was recent.
“The flag [video] that is being posted on social media pages that is across the American University is [from] February 2020 when a strong wind ripped off the flag,” Barham Kakazall told Rudaw’s Bestoon Khalid. “At the time, a few friends and I were passing by there and we did not want cars to go over it.”
“We even asked Qubad Talabani, the deputy prime minister, to renovate the flag as the wind had torn a piece of it,” he added.
The video drew a mixed reaction from people, with some pointing fingers at students, with others defending their actions and saying the clip was old.
A protesting student on Wednesday spoke to Rudaw English and denied that students were “saboteurs”.
“Students are not saboteurs. We have not wrecked anything and have even cleaned up the roads after ourselves. We will continue until every single demand is met,” Hamid Abdulrahman from Sulaimani said.
