From Will Pedigo, producer at NPT currently working on a documentary about Nashville’s Kurdish community.
This Thursday evening, January 31 from 5:30-7:00 p.m., there is a free and open to public event at the Flynn Auditorium, Vanderbilt University Law School — 131 21st Avenue South in Nashville — Holding the Hussein Regime Accountable for Atrocities: The Iraqi High Tribunal and Justice for the Kurdish Victims of the al Anfal Campaign.
The judges who presided over the Anfal genocide proceedings, including the President of the Iraqi High Tribunal and the Presiding Judge of Trial Chamber II, are coming to Vanderbilt Law School Jan. 31 for this panel discussion, which will provide analysis of the case. The Anfal Campaign occurred through Sadaam Hussein’s regime and resulted in the destruction of thousands of villages in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and an estimated 180,000 killed or disappeared Kurds. Many Kurds living in Nashville suffered through these attacks and still live with the side effects of chemical and traditional warfare. The Tribunal’s judgment marks one of the only times in history individuals have been convicted of genocide—the worst crime known to humankind.