1974: Leyla Qasim, Bride of Kurdistan
May 12th, 2018 Headsman
On this date in 1974, Kurdish activist Leyla Qasim was hanged by the Ba’ath regime in Baghdad.
A middle daughter among four brothers from the heavily Kurdish Khanaqin district, Qasim joined the Kurdish Student Union as a student at Baghdad University in the early 1970s.
The Iraqi government had fought a running war against Kurdish rebels throughout the 1960s, resolved only by a tenuous truce; by the spring of 1974 armed conflict began again.
Visible Kurdish activists living right in the capital became a natural target.
Qasim and four male companions were arrested in late April, accused of plotting against Iraq (various accounts have this down to a hijacking scheme or cogitating the murder of Saddam Hussein). They were tortured, condemned in a televised trial, and executed together.
She purportedly gave her family the last words of a proper martyr: “I am going to be [the] Bride of Kurdistan and embrace it.”
She’s still regarded as a Kurdish heroine and many families confer her name on their daughters.
On this day..
- 1944: Oskar Kusch, Wehrkraftzersetzung U-boat commander - 2020
- 1899: Claude Branton, gallows photograph - 2019
- 1775: William Pitman, for murdering his slave - 2017
- 1868: Robert Smith, the last publicly hanged in Scotland - 2016
- 1543: Jakob Karrer, Vesalius subject - 2015
- 1625: Not Helene Gillet, beheading survivor - 2014
- 1936: Buck Ruxton, red stains - 2013
- 1388: Three evil counselors of Richard II - 2012
- 1730: James Dalton, Hogarth allusion - 2011
- 1641: Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford - 2010
- 1993: Leonel Herrera, perilously close to simple murder? - 2009
- 1916: James Connolly, socialist revolutionary - 2008
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Activists,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Execution,Famous,Hanged,History,Iraq,Kurdistan,Martyrs,Mass Executions,Racial and Ethnic Minorities,Torture,Treason,Wartime Executions,Women
Tags: 1970s, 1974, baghdad, leyla qasim, may 12
A true heroine.