Kurdistan marks 52nd anniversary of execution of Kurdish activist Layla Qasim

ERBIL — Kurdish leaders on Tuesday commemorated the 52nd anniversary of the execution of Layla Qasim, a Kurdish activist who was put to death by Iraq’s Baath regime in 1974 and has since become one of the most prominent symbols of Kurdish nationalism and women’s political participation.

Qasim was born in 1952 in Khanaqin to a Feyli Kurdish family. After completing her education there, she moved with her family to Baghdad, where she studied at the University of Baghdad’s College of Arts and became involved in Kurdish national activism. She was arrested in late April 1974 and sentenced to death following a trial that lasted less than two weeks. She is considered among the first women executed in the Middle East for political activism. Her execution came during renewed conflict between the Baath government and the Kurdish movement following the collapse of a 1970 autonomy agreement.

KDP leader Masoud Barzani said Qasim and her comrades “courageously sacrificed their lives for the freedom and dignity of their people and became symbols of resistance for all freedom seekers in Kurdistan.” Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani described her as “a national symbol” and “a beacon of awareness and leadership for the women of Kurdistan,” saying her “extraordinary resilience in prison and in the face of execution proved that Kurdish women possess unwavering determination.”

Several streets, parks and schools in the Kurdistan Region bear her name.

The Baath Party ruled Iraq from 1968 until the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein’s government in 2003, during which it carried out systematic repression and genocide against Kurdish populations, including forced displacement, mass arrests and killings.