ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Prominent Kurdish writer Farhad Pirbal was arrested on Sunday accused of setting fire to a local bookshop in Erbil on Saturday night, claiming it had printed five of his books without his knowledge or consent. The publishing house denies the accusation.
Footage has surfaced on social media showing Pirbal torching the bookshop and cafe, Malli Wafaye (Loyalty Home), in the Kurdistan Region capital.
Soran Aziz, manager of the bookshop, told Rudaw the fire “has burnt more than 5,000 books, wasting 10 years of our work here”.
Pirbal accused the bookshop of copyright violation.
Farhad Pirbal is an author and intellectual of Kurdish literature. He is known for his criticism of the Kurdish establishment, his eccentric style, and acts of protest, which have led some to question his mental health. Photo: Farhad Pirbal / Facebook
“I told them [Malli Wafaye] earlier that they had printed five of my books without informing me and without having a legal contract with myself, selling a book for 15,000 dinars, taking 7,000 dinars for themselves. I asked them not to do it again,” Pirbal had said in a Facebook post.
“I asked them to give me back my books otherwise I will burn my books at their store. They asked me to go and take my complaint to the court,” Pirbal said.
“If there is no copyright law, this is how I resolve it. What I did is a message for parliament to pass legislation protecting rights of writers, intellectuals, and artists.”
Aziz dismissed Pirbal’s claims, saying he printed the books for “free” with Pirbal’s full knowledge. He was even “grateful” for the favor they did for him.
“We printed two of his books. We visited him and three writers can testify to this. We respected him and said that we wanted to print the books and he liked it and was even grateful for this,” Aziz told Rudaw on Sunday.
“We held a seminar for him on Thursday, after which he said we had to give him all 1,000 copies we had printed of his books. But he was just selling a fight to us. This is while we had an oral and ethical agreement to give him 100 copies of the book, and I myself put 100 copies of the book in his car.”
Soran Aziz, manager of Malli Wafaye (Loyalty Home) bookshop in Erbil, speaks to Rudaw, July 14, 2019. Photo: Rudaw TV
Aziz said the true motive for the bookshop fire is something else. The publishing house recently declined to print one of his books in which he allegedly ridicules Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani and some other distinguished writers.
“He recently published a novel titled A Triangular Tomb. He asked us to publish it for him. We read the transcript only to find out that some great writers of this city were ridiculed in the novel. And we didn’t publish it for him because we didn’t want to contribute to the disrespect shown to these figures in the novel, including Nechirvan Barzani, his wife Tarza Jaff, and Khasraw Jaff. This led to a problem with us.”
“He has been threatening to torch the bookshop over the past two days. I informed all the authorities of this city of his threats yesterday, asking them to assign two police officers. But they ignored my request.”
The owner called on the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to respond to Pirbal’s actions targeting “cultural establishments”. Pirbal was arrested following a court order.
“Farhad Pirbal was arrested today after an arrest warrant was issued by the court against him for setting fire to Malli Wafaye,” Major General Abdulkhaliq Talaat told Rudaw Sunday.
“Dr Farhad Pirbal has psychological problems and needs to be taken to a psychotherapy center abroad because we don’t have such a center in Kurdistan to treat him.”
Malli Wafaye is a bookshop that also publishes books and arranges cultural activities.
Pirbal was sent to Jordan to receive medical treatment in 2018. He was arrested in March of that year under article 226 of the Iraqi penal code, which concerns defamation.
Pirbal has a doctorate in the history of Kurdish literature, which he studied at Paris-Sorbonne University in France. The writer has been a lecturer at Salahaddin University-Erbil since 1994 and has authored more than 43 books.
