The Red Security – Amna Suraka, Sulaymaniyah
The Red Security Building, known locally as Amna Suraka (in Kurdish: ئەمنه سوورکه), meaning “Red Security”, was originally built in the 1970s during the rule of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party. It served as the regional headquarters of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (Mukhabarat) in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah, in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq.
The building was painted dark red hence the name “Red Security.” It stood on Salim Street, one of the city’s main roads, surrounded by high concrete walls topped with barbed wire. Inside were cells, interrogation rooms, and underground torture chambers used by the regime to imprison and interrogate Kurdish civilians, intellectuals, and political activists during the 1980s and early 1990s.
When the Kurdish uprising (Raparin) broke out in March 1991, local people in Sulaymaniyah rose against the Ba’ath regime. After heavy fighting, the Kurdish Peshmerga forces captured the building. It became one of the first symbols of liberation in the region.
Following the uprising, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) transformed the site into Iraq’s first museum dedicated to documenting the crimes of the Ba’ath regime. Today, Amna Suraka Museum stands as both a memorial and an educational center. Its exhibits include preserved prison cells, walls still scarred by bullets, personal belongings of prisoners, and powerful installations such as the “Hall of Mirrors”, where each mirror represents a life lost in the Anfal genocide campaign.
The museum is open to visitors in central Sulaymaniyah, about a fifteen-minute walk from the city’s main bazaar. It remains one of the most significant historical landmarks in the Kurdistan Region, a place where memory and resilience live side by side.
