GULA

My husband was arrested after several people gave the security forces his name. Six months later, some Iraqi officers arrived at my brother-in-law’s home. They knocked on the gate and asked for me.

My sister told them I wasn’t there. I heard the conversation and came out. At the time, I didn’t know they had come to arrest me. There were several Iraqi officers including a lieutenant named Kamal. He was a tall, dark, heavily built man with a gold tooth.

“Are you Karwan’s wife?”

“Yes.”

He grabbed my hand. My sister held me, but the lieutenant hit her. He pushed me out of the house towards a car parked in front of the gate. He wouldn’t even let me put on shoes or take a jacket. Before entering the vehicle, I begged them to allow me to take my two-year old son.

“Shut up. You and your husband are traitors. Your son is better off without you!”

When Lieutenant Kamal said this, I grew angry and refused to get in the car. But, I was also filled with sadness and sorrow thinking of my husband and son. And I was worried because I was six months pregnant.

Then, they pushed me inside the car. Lieutenant Kamal shoved my head against the window.

“You deserve to suffer because you work for the insurgents.”

They took me to the Emergency Security Directorate located in the Chwarbakh quarter near the Sulaimaniya Stadium.

Before we left the car, they blindfolded me and handcuffed me to Lieutenant Kamal. We walked for several minutes. Then, they took off the blindfold and I found myself in large hall with black walls and many gray doors.

They brought a man to me. He fell onto the ground in the middle of the hall. His left leg looked broken and he had lost his right eye. It was very cold and he wore only black underpants. His arms and back had been burned.

I approached the body slowly. I stopped, and then walked a bit closer. I looked at him and didn’t say a word. He was so disfigured.

I couldn’t believe it was Karwan.

“He’s alive,” said Lieutenant Kamal.

I stood in that hall for five minutes in silence.

They took me outside the hall and up some stairs and put me in a dimly lit, windowless room. There were three people sitting behind a metal table. In the middle sat a judge, a white heavy man, balding with gray hair and no mustache. I was still handcuffed to Lieutenant Kamal.

“My daughter, do not conceal the truth. Tell us everything,” said the judge.

Then, they brought in two boys around fifteen years old. They had been beaten and their faces were swollen and bruised. They were our neighbors.

“We know her,” they said, one after other, “We brought guns and leaflets to her home many times and hid them under loaves of bread.”

They took the two boys out of the room. Then, the judge and the two other people left.

Lieutenant Kamal took off the handcuffs.

“Wait here.”

Around ten minutes later, two heavy built men came into the room. They were dark skinned and athletic. They wore military clothes and spoke Kurdish with a Khanaqin accent. They brought over a chair and desk and set it next to mine. They raised my legs onto the chair. Then, they hit me with a metal pole. They hit me hard, over and over.

They swore at me.

“You slut.”

“You liar.”

“You whore.”

They beat me so long that I fainted and collapsed. I lost consciousness, but woke up when I felt a pain in my lower back. One of the soldiers was kicking me.

“She’s just pretending to have fainted.”

Pain swept through my body.

I fainted again.

When I regained consciousness, I found myself in a military hospital. My right hand was handcuffed to the side of the bed. I was only slightly conscious. A female, Arab doctor was standing beside me. She stood up straight and had long black hair that fell over her shoulders. Lieutenant Kamal and a captain named Salam were there as well.

The doctor said, “You shouldn’t beat people like that. Now, this woman may lose her baby and die because of a hemorrhage.”

On the left of the bed there was a curtain. They drew it closed.

Later, a nurse came to me and asked in a low voice, “What’s your name? Do you have a relative who’s been detained? What’s his name?”

I told her my name and told her that my husband, Karwan, had been arrested and jailed.

“Your husband asked about you. He’s in one of the beds behind you. He’s alive. I am going to tell him that you’re alive too.”

At that moment, I was so sad that I wished I was dead. It was simply too hard to accept that my husband was just behind me in the room and that we were separated by only a few curtains. We couldn’t speak or see each other. It was painful to think of how my husband and I were suffering, deprived of tenderness and love.

Eventually, the doctor came and told me that I had recovered and would be discharged.

“Your baby is alive.”

The doctor left me and I was alone. Late at night, Lieutenant Kamal and Captain Salam woke me up. They took me outside the hospital barefoot, in a red dress. They transferred me back to the Emergency Security Directorate. They brought me inside, opened a door and pushed me into a big hall with rooms full of prisoners. In the hall, there was a man attached by handcuffs to a metal pipe set in the ground. They released the man and put me in his place, fastening me to the pipe.

After a while, they brought me some bread and a small bowl of yogurt.

The rooms were full of men. They forced sixty or seventy prisoners into a single room. No one was allowed to speak.

I think I was the only woman in the jail.

The officer in charge was Lieutenant Abbass. He ordered the prisoners around, telling them when to sleep, wake up, sit, and stand. When it was night he told the prisoners, “Sleep and don’t move.” If someone moved, he would hit him with a pipe or a wire cable. The prisoners could use the bathroom only once a day. Lieutenant Abbass would blow a whistle and all the prisoners from one of the cells would rush to the bathroom. After two or three minutes, he blew the whistle a second time and the prisoners would have to return to their cells. If someone was late entering the cell, he was beaten.

The next day, after midnight they took me to a small windowless room. The door to the room was metal and above it there was a red light. There was a metal table opposite a desk. There was a hammer, pliers, scissors, and some other tools on the table. On the wall, there was a mirror.

I was scared. Then, Lieutenant Kamal and Captain Salam came into the room with a big, black dog.

“It’s better for you to confess. Otherwise we’ll beat you.”

“What do you do for the insurgents?”

“What does Karwan do for them?”

“It is better that you tell us now so you can be released.”

“I don’t know anything about the insurgents. I don’t know anything about my husband.”

Lieutenant Kamal released the dog and spoke to him, giving him instructions with his hands. The dog came up behind me and put his front legs on my shoulder and started to lick my neck, my hair, and my ears. I was disgusted and scared. He spoke to the dog again. The dog came to my front and started to lick my face, nose, mouth, and breasts. He said something else and the dog urinated on me.

I said nothing. I didn’t move. I was covered in dog urine.

They were both very angry.

“What are you?” asked Captain Salam. “Are you a pig?”

They looked at me for a while. Then, they left with the dog and the two dark boys from Khanaqin who had beaten me came into the room. Each one carried a wire cable.

They started to beat me. It was so painful that I fainted.

When I regained consciousness, I found myself back in the hospital. I saw the same doctor. I was handcuffed to the bed and there were two guards watching over me.

The doctor defended me. I will never forget this. She was angry with two guards and said, “I don’t conduct medical examinations in this way. Remove the handcuffs and go outside.”

The guards took off the handcuffs and left the room. The doctor asked me my name. I told her and then she told me her name. She asked me why I was arrested and wrote my name on a piece of paper which she put it in her pocket. After the examination, she asked to see the officer in charge.

Later an officer named Major Hamid came into my room.

The doctor said, “She’s been tortured very badly. You shouldn’t beat people like that. Also, patients in a hospital should not be handcuffed to the bed.”

“These people are Peshmurga. It is better to let them all die.”

“She’s a woman who has no power to control her husband. Perhaps her husband made her get involved in politics. I’m going to move her to the delivery hall in the maternity hospital where she’ll stay for three days without handcuffs.”

“If you will vouch for her, I will honor your request.”

The doctor supported me under the condition that if I escaped, she would be arrested. They gave me some injections and I stayed three nights in the hospital.

Then, Major Hamid and two guards came to hospital. They blindfolded me with a white cloth and then took me back to the Emergency Security Directorate. Once again, they put me in the big hall, but this time I wasn’t handcuffed to the pipe.

After a while, a guard named Abdulla came close to me and whispered, “Your husband is here. He’s in room number nine. If you want to see him, ask permission to go to the bathroom. Room number nine is next to the bathroom.”

A bit later, I asked another guard to let me use the bathroom. He wanted to escort me, but I asked to go alone. I wanted to see my husband. They let me go and I walked down the hall. I looked through a small window as I passed room number nine. I saw Karwan. He was black and blue. We gestured to each other. He asked about me and the baby.

“We are fine,” I whispered.

We spoke softly for a few minutes. Then, I returned to the hall and sat down. I was in that cold hall for four nights without being interrogated.

Around midnight one evening they took me to the first floor and put me in a torture room. There was a girl in the room. They were beating her. Her clothes were torn. Her face was swollen. She had collapsed on the ground. They made me stand before the unconscious woman for a long time.

Then they took me to a room with a television, some small tables, chairs, and a new sofa. Major Hamid was sitting in the room. They made me sit on the sofa.

Major Hamid said, “Although she’s stubborn, give her a Pepsi. Maybe we should consider what the doctor said about the baby.”

They brought me Pepsi and some candy.

Major Hamid started interrogating me.

He asked me where we hid documents. “I don’t know anything except what I already told you.”

I sat in the room for half an hour without saying another word.

Then, they put me in a car. I don’t know where they took me, but in the end, we were at the back gate of another office of the Security Directorate. The place looked like a gas station. There were groups of guards and soldiers.

As I stood there, the men laughed at me.

They made me go into a building. It was dark and I couldn’t see inside. They made me stand in a certain place and then they pushed me into a pit. I slipped down maybe two meters. I grabbed onto something which stopped my fall. I was scared because I had no idea of how far I might fall.

I was crying and screaming, “Torture me, kill me, but take me someplace where I can at least see what’s happening!”

I heard noises and shouting from people at the bottom of the pit, but I couldn’t see anything because it was so dark.

From the bottom, I heard a woman’s voice, “Come, my sister. Come down. There are many of us down here.”

Someone shined a light towards me. I could see the bottom and the ceiling, which was arched. Below, there were women, children, and old people all piled on top of each other. Their hair was tangled and dirty. The men’s moustaches and beards were long. They looked like wild people. It seemed that they hadn’t been outside for years. Two came close to me, and with the light, they helped me descend to the bottom. They took me through the crowd. It smelled terrible, like the smell of dead bodies or rotting fruit. I was barefoot and the ground was wet.

There were around fifty people in the room. I passed by them all slowly. Then, I was taken out of the room and brought upstairs. They opened the door and Captain Salam was sitting on a chair.

“Welcome. Sit down. How is your baby?”

“God is merciful,” I said.

“God is merciful,” he said.

He asked me the same questions as when I was first arrested.

“Believe me,” I said, “if I knew something, I would tell you.”

“Take her away.”

Two guards took me to a big hall. As they walked me to a cell, a prisoner named Kak Saman came up to me. He was a good man and asked me about my arrest. He looked sad. He gave me his coat because all my clothes were torn. He brought me a blanket and pillow.

“Your cell is very cold. Take these things.”

“What about you?” “It’s not a problem. I’m a man.”

I took what he gave me and went to my cell.

One day, the guards returned and took me back to Captain Salam. He was looking over some papers. They forced me to sit down. Again, he asked me the same questions.

“You know you’re driving us crazy,” he said, “Why are you making fun of us?” We ask you questions and you tell us nothing. It’s time for you to talk.”

“I’ve told you everything I know.”

He started beating me very hard.

I began to cry. I couldn’t hear very well. I was in so much pain. “Take her back to the cell.”

When I returned to the cell, I was aching and my ears hurt. I lay on my bed and started to cry. I was so worried. My head was aching. I was thinking of the baby inside me. I didn’t know whether it was alive or dead. I missed my son.

They kept me in the cell for two more days and nights. Then, two women were brought to the cell. One of them was a young woman named Basoz who was imprisoned with her child. She had been arrested because of her husband. The second one was named Nazira and was arrested because of her son.

Basoz looked at me and said, “Oh my God! Do they hit every one in this way?”

They called the young women every day for questioning. Basoz was very scared. Her husband was a Peshmurga, but they hadn’t found anything in her home to link her to the Peshmurga.

I told her, “During the investigation, just tell them, ‘I have no control over my husband. He won’t even listen to what I say.’”

They took the women off for questioning every day, but left me alone. I was crying for my relatives, for Karwan, and for my baby.

On Nawraz, the Kurdish New Year, Captain Salam came to the cell to say, “Tonight, you’ll burn like a Nawraz fire! Your husband too. We are going to burn you here. Tonight, you’ll both be killed.”

“Don’t you see that life in this prison is like being dead? Go ahead and kill me. For me, it would be better to be dead than to continue living like this.”

An hour passed. No one came.

Then, Captain Salam came and gave me some bread and a cucumber, “You don’t deserve this food, but come and eat.”

“I don’t want it.” He threw the food down.

I picked it up and threw it back at him. He returned and spat in my face.

“Dog.”

“Bitch.”

“Slut…”

I was tired of my life. By then I expected to be killed. On the first day of Ramadan, I felt contractions. The guards told Captain Salam who called Major Hamid. They took me to maternity hospital. I delivered my baby that day. I named him Bandi.

Someone told my family that I was there. The doctor brought me to room where there was a sick woman from Halabja. When my relatives came to the hospital, they pretended to visit the other woman. I didn’t speak with them, even when they looked at me because there were two guards sitting beside me. It was difficult and sad. I spent five days there.

Then, they took me back to prison. When my baby was a month and a half old, they said to me, “We’re going to release you.”

At the time, they said the same thing to Basoz and Nazira. I didn’t believe them. They took us to the Sulaimaniya jail. They interrogated us again. There were maybe a hundred women and children in the cell. I sat near the door. It was dirty and you could see insects crawling over all the prisoners.

Again, we were transferred. I was put in a cell with seven other women, all Kurds. I was there for fifteen days. During that time I was never interrogated or tortured.

One day, I was called to the office of the Director. He was a large Arab.

“Do you want to go home?”

“Does anyone ever tire of their home?”

“If we release you, you will work for us?”

“No.”

“Why do you work for Peshmurga?”

“I don’t work for the Peshmurga. I’ve been suffering here for over a year.”

“We don’t want to torture you. We want to treat you as a sister.” Then, he spoke to the guards, “Take her to room number eleven.”

There were two security men in that room. They asked me to confess. Then, they started to hit me with a wire cable. They beat me so hard that I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I found myself back in the room with my son, Bandi. He was hungry and crying, but I had no milk for him.

Then, one day, the Director came to the room and gave Bandi a few dinars.

“Go,” he said. And, I was released.

They put me in a taxi. I went to my aunt’s home.

When she saw me, she started to cry and shout. She hugged me. She couldn’t say anything except “My Gula”! After that she took me to my father’s new home. When my mother opened the front door, my aunt couldn’t speak. She just pointed to me waiting in the taxi. My mother fainted.

Then, my father came out and yelled, “Gula has been released!” One of my sisters ran out and to the street and started shouting and dancing.