ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A man from the Kurdistan Region’s eastern Sulaimani province claims he was detained for several hours by Iraqi security forces at a checkpoint in Kirkuk after they discovered Kurdish-language books in his car.
Rebin, an online book reseller, told Rudaw on Sunday that he had purchased four to five cartons of books from a local bazaar in Sulaimani and was traveling to Erbil via Kirkuk on Saturday afternoon. Near Kirkuk, he was stopped by Iraqi forces for what initially appeared to be a routine inspection.
“One of the officers asked what the books were about,” Rebin said. “I told him they’re Kurdish: Piramerd’s poetry collection, his proverbs, The Story of Sinuhe, A Thousand and One Nights, and children’s books.”
Another officer nearby allegedly remarked, “If the books are in Arabic, let him pass; if they are Kurdish, then they’re banned.”
Rebin said he was then directed to another inspection area, where officers began photographing the books.
Among them was a collection of letters exchanged between prominent Kurdish political leaders - Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud Barzani, late Iraqi president and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Jalal Talabani, and the late Change Movement (Gorran) leader Nawshirwan Mustafa.
“They repeatedly placed that book next to the others as they took photos, as if to highlight it,” Rebin recalled.
While the officers initially told him there was no problem, their stance later changed, Rebin claimed, adding that after several hours of waiting, they informed him that the books were banned and must be returned to Sulaimani. He agreed, asked for his identification documents, and prepared to leave.
“It wasn’t until after 11:20 p.m. that I finally got my ID back,” he said, claiming one officer told him to leave in a disrespectful manner.
During the rule of toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein Kurdish publications were heavily censored. While there was no explicit law banning Kurdish-language books, authorities used articles from the 1969 Iraqi Penal Code - often under vague justifications such as “insulting the Arab community” or threatening national security - to suppress Kurdish literature.
In the post-2003 era, the situation shifted. The 2005 Iraqi Constitution guarantees "freedom of expression by all means," including "freedom of the press, printing, advertising, media, and publication.” However, the application of these rights remains inconsistent and frequently contested.
