Researcher Presents Kurdish Rights Archive at Erbil Book Fair

ERBIL, Iraq — Researcher and writer Adalet Ömer presented documentary and archival work on rights violations against Kurds at the Kurdish Book Fair in Erbil, describing his work as a duty to preserve collective memory rather than purely academic research. Ömer said he has spent 30 years examining yellowed files, faded photographs and incomplete records documenting abuses against Kurds. According to his research covering the period between 1968 and 2003, the number of Kurdish victims exceeded half a million, including those killed, missing, forcibly displaced, and stripped of their rights. Ömer identified the Anfal operations as among the heaviest files in his research, during which 182,000 people died. He also cited the March 16, 1988 chemical attack on Halabja, which killed approximately 5,000 people, and noted that 63 mass graves in the region remain unopened. In practices targeting the Kurdish Feyli community, Ömer said hundreds of thousands of people were subjected to systematic targeting through denial of citizenship, confiscation of property and disruption of family structures.