IRBIL, Iraq — While daily car bombs and political upheaval roil Baghdad, Iraq's northern region of Kurdistan has enjoyed a reputation as an oasis of security where terrorist attacks are rare, families picnic on holidays, and Westerners can travel the countryside unscathed.
But residents of Kurdistan's three provinces, lying along Iraq's mountainous borders with Iran and Turkey, say that security has come at a price.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday April 20, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 40 words Type of Material: Correction
Kurdish leaders: An article in the April 10 Section A gave an incorrect family relationship between Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdish regional government, and Massoud Barzani, the president. Nechirvan is a nephew of Massoud, not a son.
Iqbal Ali Mohammed said that although his income has increased and his material life has become more comfortable, his spiritual life suffers.
"Even though the majority of the Kurds are Muslims, I am not able to practice my religion as openly as I want to because they might accuse me of being a terrorist," he said.
Sroosh Janab Mohammed, a government employee in Sulaymaniya, said her life has become easier in some ways.
"Security is good. I can travel outside the country if I want. There are more job opportunities," she said.
"But sometimes the police disappear people and say they are terrorists," she added. "And the parties control everything. Everything serves their interests."
Power in the largely autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq is divided between two longtime ruling political parties, largely to the exclusion of dissenters. A heavily policed state strictly limits political opposition and speech, residents and human rights advocates say.
In a war-ravaged country where sectarian violence has become the norm, officials of Kurdistan's ruling parties make no apologies.
"Here if you are suspected, you will be detained, it's as simple as that," said Mohammed Tofiq, a high-ranking member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party that largely controls eastern Kurdistan.
"People here don't have a problem with that," he said. "Here, if that happens, everybody claps."
Not everybody. Critics of the ruling parties -- the PUK and the Kurdish Democratic Party, which controls western Kurdistan -- say the squelching of political dissent goes too far.
Some of the critics are officials of Kurdistan's nominal government, who say that party affiliated militias, intelligence services and security agencies operate largely outside their control.
"The security forces are like political tools in the hands of the parties," said Hadi Ali, justice minister for the KDP-controlled administrative center in Irbil.
