The Kurdish uprising of 1991 against Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship is a pivotal event commemorated by all Kurdish peoples. This day marked the defeat of the Ba’athist regime in Kurdistan’s cities and each year, Kurdish channels run footage of the moment that people broke into Sulaymaniyah’s notorious prison Amna Suraka, The Red Prison (or Security Prison). It was a dreadful building in the middle of the city that stood out as a symbol of terror and oppression where for many years, hundreds of Kurdish men and women were tortured and killed by the regime.
Abbas has a vague memory of this day in front of the Red Prison. He was ten years old and he remembers seeing a caravan full of colorful women’s clothes, contraceptive pills, and other objects. The event left its mark on him, and years later he decided to probe further into this story. The caravan was only seen in the courtyard of the prison for a few days during the uprising until it disappeared without a trace. Since 2008, Sherko has been searching for its remains so as to get to the bottom of this mystery.
Abbas’s experimental documentary, Paper Puppet Testimony, collects the stories of Kurdish women in the Red Prison. Although the prison has been turned into a museum, the histories commemorated there are biased and focus primarily on stories of prisoners belonging to political parties in power. There is no mention of the captivity and torture endured by women prisoners. The political establishment has been unwilling to address and confront the atrocities committed against them. In his video, Abbas resists the erasure of these women’s experiences and reckons with the horrors of the past.
