If walls could speak, the Amna Suraka museum would tell tales of unimaginable horrors at the hands of Saddam Hussein's intelligence services, the Mukhabarat. The 17,000 square feet compound encloses several buildings that were once used by Saddam Hussein's Baath regime as offices, torturing chambers and cells. The first prisoners arrived in 1986 and were liberated in 1991, following a series of uprisings throughout the region – the vast majority of the prisoners were Kurds. In 2000 the haunting building was turned into a museum, a project spearheaded by Hero Talabani, PUK member and wife of former Iraqi president Jalal Talabani.
The imposing buildings have been left exactly as they were following the violent uprising – a myriad of bulletholes and shattered windows speckle the fading red facade. The courtyard has been turned into a garden of roses and is now home to a display of Iraqi weapons left behind by the invading army. Tanks, mortars and artillery weapons line the sides of the garden.
The first building hosts a colourful display of Kurdish culture. A long corridor leads to a number of rooms containing mannequins of Kurdish personalities, including Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji, as well as displays of traditional Kurdish clothes, tapestry, weaponry and jewellery.
In contrast, the second building contains the regime's torture chambers. Pain-striken sculptures created by artist Kamaran Omer are displayed in dimly-lit isolation cells and torture rooms. Strung from the ceiling, one sculpture is shown to be receiving electric shocks, a common form of torture. Another man grimaces as two guards beet his feet with wooden sticks. Blankets and water bowls have been left strewn across the cells, as if untouched. A statue of a young mother and her child are displayed in the last cell, where the regime imprisoned women and often used rape as a method of tourture.
On the ground floor, photographs taken by an Iranian photojournalist expose the dire situation faced by the Kurds during the 1991 mass exodus to Iran and Turkey, when they were forced to flee Kurdistan because of the violence.
The Hall of Mirrors commemorates those who were killed during Saddam Hussein's genocide campaign (Al Anfal) and the villages that were destroyed: 182,000 shards of mirrored glass line the wall of the 50m-long corridor, one for every victim of Anfal, along with 4500 tiny lightbulbs, for every Kurdish village destroyed. At the end of the pathway there is a replica of a traditional rural Kurdish home.
Guided tours are free and there are usually one or two guides who speak English.
