Kurdistan Kittani (1948 - 2010)
“These pictures are from my beloved aunt Kurdistan Kittani. A lawyer and then Kurdish Diplomat under the Iraqi government post-Saddam. Her red lipstick was her trade mark. She never was without it. The smell of flowers would enter the room before she did. She was a clairvoyant, people running after her with their small mocha cups, a human miracle and person that touched everyones heart. She carried her name with pride on a necklace always visible during the darkest times of Baathist oppression and persecution, losing a brother, Shivan Izzat Ali Kittani, to the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib on direct order of Saddam Hussein, and losing other sibling to exile. She saw it all, and lived for her family and the community. On the first picture she is speaking as representative of the Kurdistan Women's Union in 1970s at Kurdish Student Union Congress in Baghdad. She was a feminist, did not marry, despite infinite proposals, she lived independently at a time when hardly no one could or wanted, facing the social pressure. She was a phenomenon. She still lives with all of her nieces and nephews, she gave us magic…”
Kurdistan Kittani passed away in 2010, in Prague where she was posted as a top diplomat.
