Kurdish Terror in the north of Iraq

National Identity certificate of Mr. Lokman Nejam Ahmed

Mr. Lokman Nejam Ahmed was born on 1st July 1968 in the district of Telkeef that is linked to the city of Mosul. He was arrested on the 8th of July 2007 on the Iraqi/Turkish border Ibrahim Alkhalil by the Kurdish secret police that are known as Asayish while he was travelling from the city of Mosul to Turkey with a group of a Turkmens [1] from the city of Erbil.

Mr. Lokman Nejam Ahmed was working as a deputy of the ITF (Iraqi Turkmen Front) in the city of Mosul and according to the witnesses who were with him at the time. They have confirmed that Mr. Lokman Nejam was forced out of his car by the Kurdish police at the Iraqi Turkish border Ibrahim Alkhalil by the Asayish.

However, after months following his arrest his family with the help of Kurdish friends have managed to find out that he has been imprisoned in the city of Duhok by the Kurdish authorities.
Only his immediate family has been allowed to visit him in prison. His family is allowed visit him once every two months. Mr. Lokman Nejam has been accused of various unfounded accusations and nevertheless the Kurdish police have totally failed to produce any evidence or proof of his illegal involvement against the Kurdish authorities.

Thus Mr. Lokman Nejam Ahmed’s family have approached the deputy governor of the city of Mosul for help and support but unfortunately no support was provided. In my personal opinion the Turkmen people in Turkmeneli [2] and especially the ITF members have been continuously arrested, imprisoned, tortured and treated inhumanely by the Kurdish police only for being Turkmens as this happened recently to a teacher called Ganim Mahmud who is 60 years old, he was tortured and insulted by the Kurdish authority in north of Iraq but later on Mr. Ganim Mahmud was released after a month of continuous torturing and was asked why his nephew is helping the Turkmen teachers in promoting Turkmen teaching.

Mr. Lokman Nejam Ahmed has been kept in the Kurdish prison without formal charges and his case has not been submitted to the court. Thus, the Turkmens plight to all the human rights organisations, government officials, intellectuals, Iraqi and Turkish government for immediate intervention to put pressure on the Kurdish police whom are terrorising the Turkmen people in Turkmeneli.


Mofak Salman
Turkmeneli Party Representative for Both Ireland and United Kingdom
msalman@eircom.net



[1] Turkmens: The Iraqi Turkmens live in an area that they call “Turkmenia” in Latin or “Turkmeneli” which means, “Land of the Turkmens". It was referred to as “Turcomania” by the British geographer William Guthrie in 1785. The Turkmens are a Turkic group that has a unique heritage and culture as well as linguistic, historical and cultural links with the surrounding Turkic groups such as those in Turkey and Azerbaijan. Their spoken language is closer to Azeri but their official written language is like the Turkish spoken in present-day Turkey. Their real population has always being suppressed by the authorities in Iraq for political reasons and estimated at 2%, whereas in reality their numbers are more realistically between 2.5 to 3 million, i .e. 12% of the Iraqi population.

[2] Turkmeneli is a diagonal strip of land stretching from the Syrian and Turkish border areas from around Telafer in the north of Iraq, reaching down to the town of Mendeli on the Iranian border in Central Iraq. The Turkmens of Iraq settled in Turkmeneli in three successive and constant migrations from Central Asia, which increased their numbers and enabled them to establish six states in Iraq.