We have learned with deep sorrow of the passing of Karim SINJARI, former Minister of the Interior of Kurdistan, who died on June 10 in Erbil at the age of 75.

A prominent figure in the Kurdish resistance against Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, Karim SINJARI assumed high-ranking responsibilities within the Kurdish autonomous administration following the liberation of Iraqi Kurdistan in June 1991. He first served as Director General of Public Security and then became Minister of the Interior, a position he held without interruption in successive Kurdish governments from 1996 until his retirement from public life for health reasons in 2021.

In this role, he was the chief architect of the Kurdistan public security system. Despite political tensions, terrorist threats, and attacks carried out first by Al-Qaeda and later by ISIS, the region remained a haven of peace and stability.

A graduate of the Faculty of Law of Baghdad in 1971 and a lawyer by profession, Karim SINJARI also spent several years in exile in Sweden. He was deeply committed to the defense of human rights and the establishment of a genuine rule of law in Kurdistan. His ambition was to ensure security without infringing upon civil liberties.

In this spirit, he introduced the teaching of the « Universal Declaration of Human Rights », translated into Kurdish by the Kurdish Institute of Paris, into the training curriculum of the Kurdish security forces, and the Declaration was displayed in every police station in Kurdistan.

His passing is a great loss for the Kurdish people and for all those committed to the rule of law and democracy in Kurdistan.