Amna Suraka in Sulaymaniyah combines a former Baath security compound with exhibitions about repression, Anfal and Kurdish cultural life. Its history includes detention, the 1991 uprising, displaced families and conversion into a museum.

A tracked military vehicle displayed in front of reddish, bullet-marked buildings at Amna Suraka in Sulaymaniyah
Amna Suraka, photographed by Levi Clancy on 11 June 2017. The damaged security buildings and outdoor military display are shown as they appeared on that date. Levi Clancy, 2017 · CC0 1.0 · Wikimedia Commons.

From a security compound to a captured prison

The name Amna Suraka, commonly translated as “Red Security” or “Red Prison”, refers to the reddish security buildings in Sulaymaniyah, also known as Slemani. Construction and prison operation should not be assigned the same starting date. Cockrell-Abdullah dates the beginning of construction to September 1979; Khidhir’s 2024 report places completion in 1985. The latter account describes imprisonment of students, Kurdish nationalists and other opponents of the Baath regime. Director Ako Gharib also emphasised that victims included Arabs and Christians. The compound was captured during the March 1991 uprising. [1] [2]

Displacement and the museum’s creation

The buildings did not immediately become a finished museum after the uprising. Cockrell-Abdullah records that displaced people lived in the complex between 1991 and 1996. Around the end of that period, work to convert the site began with Hero Ibrahim Ahmed and the Newroz company. Khidhir dates the museum’s opening to 2003. These separate stages explain why the site has histories of emergency shelter and reconstruction as well as detention. A single description of an untouched prison misses those intervening uses. [1] [2]

Reading the buildings and exhibitions

Cockrell-Abdullah distinguishes damaged buildings left with visible traces of fighting from spaces adapted for exhibitions. The photograph illustrates the pitted external walls and military equipment displayed outside. Inside, Khidhir describes inscriptions on cell walls, including names, dates, slogans and poems. Material traces of imprisonment, later reconstructions and purpose-built memorial installations contribute different kinds of evidence. A photographed building is not itself a complete account of what happened inside it, and a reconstructed scene should be identified as a museum representation. [1] [2] [5]

What the mirror hall commemorates

The Hall of Mirrors uses reflective fragments and lights to commemorate destruction under the Baath regime. In his published account of visiting the museum, Omar Altabakha describes 182,000 mirror fragments representing victims of Anfal and 4,500 lights representing destroyed Kurdish villages. The lights do not each stand for an individual victim. These figures describe the installation’s commemorative scheme; they are not a new casualty count independently established by counting objects in the room. Altabakha’s account, published in January 2018 by New Tactics in Human Rights, treats the museum as a place for reflection on abuses and remembrance. [3]

Textiles, cultural work and contemporary art

The museum’s cultural role extends beyond prison displays. Cockrell-Abdullah records clothing, carpets and jewellery alongside an art gallery, cinema, library, archive and activity spaces. Artist Sakar Sleman’s own exhibition record provides a specific example: her installation Two Generations was presented at Amna Suraka in 2014. The documented event shows the site being used for contemporary artistic work, without implying that the installation is permanently on view. In the 2024 interview, Gharib also discussed a carpet collection and further museum projects. His proposals should be read as plans reported at that time, rather than evidence that every proposed gallery has since opened. [1] [2] [4]

How the museum presents a national history

Cockrell-Abdullah’s study examines how the museum connects shared suffering, cultural identity and claims to a Kurdish homeland. This is her interpretation of the museum’s national narrative, based on its displays and fieldwork, rather than a statement that every visitor experiences it identically. Her observations of school groups also show history being encountered collectively. Read together, the researcher’s field study, the director’s interview, an artist’s dated record and a visitor’s reflection reveal several roles for Amna Suraka: a place that preserves traces of repression, interprets violence through memorial design and hosts cultural activity. [1] [3] [4]

Sources and further reading

  1. Autumn Cockrell-Abdullah, “Constituting Histories Through Culture In Iraqi Kurdistan”, Zanj 2(1) (2018), pp. 65–91, especially the Amna Suraka field study; open access, CC BY 4.0.
  2. Qassim Khidhir, “Inside Sulaymaniyah’s Amna Suraka Museum”, Kurdistan Chronicle (29 September 2024); reporting and interview with director Ako Gharib.
  3. Omar Altabakha, “Amna Suraka: An Unexpected Place of Healing”, New Tactics in Human Rights (4 January 2018); first-person visit and explanation of the memorial installation.
  4. Sakar Sleman, official artist biography and exhibition record; lists Two Generations at Amna Suraka Museum in 2014.
  5. Levi Clancy, Amna Suraka, 11 June 2017, Wikimedia Commons; CC0 1.0 public-domain dedication.
  6. Cockrell-Abdullah (2018), author-posted open-access full text and fieldwork photographs; reading copy of source 1.