ROJ TV Interview with Dr. Kamal Ketuly on the current issues of Faily Kurds in Iraq on 6th December 2006.

The reception I received was very warm and welcoming from the various ROJ TV Staff whom I met. Mr Hassan Ghazi, organised my visit and interviewed me for the Ruwange Programme . During my tour of the various sections and the studios of ROJ TV I noticed a dedicated, professional staff as well as very up-to-date technical equipment and operations.

If, fellow Kurds follow the example of this type of dedication and organisation in a Kurdish establishment in Europe, we could have a better and brighter future for our Kurds and Kurdistan.


Faily Kurds in Iraq

Faily (or Phaily) Kurds are one of the ancient segments of the Ilamite Medes. They inhabit the lands of Southern Kurdistan and their land was divided between the newly created political states of Iraq and Iran after the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. Their main areas in Iraq are stretching from Kirkuk in the north, Babylon in the west, Khanaqeen in the east and Amara in the south, with the biggest population concentration in Baghdad. Failys were prominent in the Trade and Commerce sector and assumed semi-dominant position within this sector. Estimates of their number vary between 2 and 3 million in Iraq and about half a million expellees outside the country. Most of the Faily Kurds are Shiaa Moslems and few still practice the ancient Kakai, Alialahi and Zoroastrian religions. (http://www.faylee.org/)

Failys were persecuted by the regime of Saddam for various reasons - their adaptability and social and economic mobility, openness and nonsectarian open-mindedness; their strong economic position; their support for the Kurdish national movement and democratic forces.

From 4th April1980 until 1989, Saddam ordered the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Failys and other Iraqi Nationals who were forcibly expelled from Iraq on flimsy and unsubstantiated pretexts of being of Iranian origin. The state of Iraq under Saddam unlawfully stripped them of their Iraqi citizenship; confiscated their movable and immovable property; took from them all their personal official and non-official documents including their passports; detained thousands of their young men and women as hostages, who disappeared without a trace until now. ( www.9neesan.com/iraqihostages)

Failys still await the restoration of their rights in the new Iraq. They aspire to a role in the political process in Iraq to regain and safeguard their rights and interests and to play a stabilizing part. Failys are not party to the ongoing very hot sectarian strife, they have no militia forces, and they have intermixed with and are on good terms with all sections of Iraqi society, Kurds, Arabs, and Turkomans, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Christians and other faiths.

Failys feel strongly that they are marginalized and outsiders and no political force in Iraq really bother to restore to them their constitutional and legal rights, despite repeated appeals. Shiites Arabs are suspicious of the Failys being ethnically Kurds. Kurds are not sure of the Failys because there are Shiites. Some Sunni Arabs see them as Iranians.

Faily Kurds demand from the newly elected state of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government to honor its constitutional and legal responsibilities and political commitments to:
1- Restoration of Failys' Iraqi citizenship and citizenship rights.
2- The return of their official and other documents taken from them and compensation for what they have lost.
3- Returning their confiscated movable and immovable property.
4- Information on the fate of their detained and disappeared youth during Saddam regime and the where-about of their remains.
5- Presence in the current political process in Iraq by representatives of their own.
6- De-Arabise the Faily cities, towns and villages in Iraq and to respect and restate their Kurdish cultural rights.


Dr Kamal Ketuly
16th December 2006