Amna Surak - Sulaymaniyah, Iraq
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Torgut
N 35° 33.728 E 045° 25.513
38S E 538534 N 3935467
Amna Surak, also known as the Red Museum, was the headquarters of the Baath party in Sulaymaniyah, the second largest city in Iraqi Kurdistan. But at the same same it was a prison and torture center for the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Waymark Code: WM1C4M4
Location: Iraq
Date Posted: 06/04/2025
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The Red Museum is much more than a former prison, both in its previous life and nowadays. Before, besides being the regional headquarters of the Baath party, the single party in Saddam Hussein regime, it was also prison and center of torture. Nowadays it has several visitable spaces, besides the prison. There are a few museums (or exhibits), including an outdoors heavy weapons exhibit.
Part of the prison can be visited, including individual cells - which of course were seldom individually - and collective cells, toilettes, corridors, etc.
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"From 1979 to 1991, during Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq, Amna Suraka was the northern headquarters of the Da'irat al-Amn/Directorate of General Security, the Iraqi Interior Ministry's intelligence agency, colloquially referred to as just Amn.[2] Many people were imprisoned there, especially students, Kurdish nationalists, and other dissidents. Many were tortured and raped. During the 1991 Battle of Sulaymaniah Iraqi security officials and soldiers retreated to the Amn headquarters which served as the Baathist stronghold in the city and held off rebels for nearly two days until the prison was captured by Peshmerga forces, following a 2 hour long assault. Rebels summarily executed 300 Amn agents, with angry civilians killing many others. One group of mothers whose sons had been killed at the compound stoned and axed to death 21 Iraqis. In total, between 700 and 800 secret policemen and soldiers were killed, although many conscripts were pardoned and allowed to return to their homes in the south by KDP chief Massoud Barzani. The building has many bullet marks from that battle."
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