Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
Sulaymaniyah, Iraq
Tucked away in an often-overlooked arc of northern Iraq, Kurds launched their "Kurdish Spring" simply enough in mid-February, in solidarity with Tunisians and Egyptians who had toppled dictatorial rulers.
ut the result here was very different, and hardly looked like an unfolding of freedom. Washingtons close Kurdish allies cracked down hard. After 62 days of street protests, 10 people were dead. The carefully crafted image of Kurdistan as a democratic island in an ocean of regional dictatorship was in tatters.
All that visibly remains of the uprising are a few faded posters of its first victim a 16-year-old and scorch marks where security forces burned the tents of protesters. But it has deepened the political crisis in this semiautonomous region of northern Iraq.
Beneath the veneer of restored calm, activists say, is a surging mistrust of Iraqi Kurdish leadership. That could complicate the enclaves relations with the rest of Iraq, especially regarding control of the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
It could also undermine aspirations among disenfranchised ethnic Kurds outside Iraq in Syria, Turkey, and Iran who have long viewed the limited self-rule exercised by their Iraqi brethren as an example of what they could achieve.
What humiliated us was the killing of Kurdish citizens by the militia of Kurdish political parties, says Nasik Kadir, a health ministry worker and political sociologist who vows to fight what she calls abuse of power.
We have suffered for years corruption and lack of rule of law, but when it comes to the blood of our youth, it is unbearable, says Ms. Kadir, who says she witnessed casualties firsthand in the hospital. These authorities have lost legitimacy.... For many people [Kurdish leaders] have betrayed our national cause.
