Diana Nammi - Girl with a Gun

For all the Peshmerga women who lost their lives
and continue to do so
for the safety and freedom of others

With love to Tara, Yasmin and Isaac

With thanks to Ian Armitage for his support

I first met Diana Nammi in October 2014, when I went to interview her for the Independent on Sunday . Diana had won a Barclays Women of the Year award for her campaigning work with IKWRO, the charity she founded in London. IWKRO campaigns against and raises awareness about honour-based violence and also runs a counselling service and refuge for women affected by such violence. I returned to the newsroom with 5,000 words which I had to edit into a 900-word article. Diana and I both knew that her extraordinary and important story needed to be told in more detail.

Diana was born in the Kurdish region of Iran. Kurds are an ethic minority in the predominantly Persian Iran. The national language in Iran is Farsi, also known as Persian. The Kurds have never had a permanent nation state, and live as minorities in the mountainous region straddling the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia. When we refer to Kurdistan in the book, we are generally referring to the Kurdish region of Iran.

Peshmerga are Kurdish freedom fighters and you can find various direct translations into English, such as One who faces death. Our preference is One who sacrifices his or her life for others, as this truly explains what a Peshmerga is prepared to do.

Karen Attwood, March 2020

Y our wedding day should be the best day of your life. For Kurdish women, when I was growing up, it was often the worst day imaginable.

My earliest memory is of an arranged marriage between a bride, not more than fourteen or fifteen, and a groom twice her age. Ahmed, the groom, was a huge man who used to work in my fathers bakery. He had pockmarks all over his face.

It was the 1960s. I was not more than four years old but I remember vividly the dazzling beauty of the bride in her red and gold wedding outfit. Amina had long, shiny black hair, delicate features in her bronze-coloured face and enormous black eyes lined with kohl, which made them shimmer. She also wore a look that I recognised as fear.

Like all Kurdish weddings at that time, the celebration lasted for three days. On the first day, Amina went to the hammam, the public bath, with her bridesmaids, where she was washed and made beautiful. On the way to the hammam and on the way back, one of the brides friends held a large mirror in front of her, to represent brightness and happiness for the future. On the second day, she had the palms of her hands and the bottom of her feet elaborately painted in henna at her home. This was a girls only party with lots of laughter. On the same night, at the grooms house, the music began and the guests of the groom came together to dance. This continued the next day with the Zizi brothers a group of three brothers well known in Saqqez, the small city in the middle of Iranian Kurdistan where I lived singing and beating a huge drum.

The music was joyful, rapid and loud, as everyone held hands dancing in a circle. The younger guests began to show off and move faster and faster. I felt dizzy just watching them. The guests took turns in leading the dance. I felt proud as my handsome father held a glittery scarf aloft, a sarchopi , to lead the dancers round and round.

The brides family brought Amina to the ceremony in a car through the city. Her father handed her over to Ahmed, who was traditionally dressed in a white shirt with a blue suit, the coat and trousers known as kava and pantol .

The dancing and singing continued into the night until suddenly, as though the lights had gone out, the atmosphere changed.

My mother took my hand. We went into the dark bedroom, which was smoky from herbs being burned over charcoal, a wedding tradition to bring health into the marriage and drive out misfortune. The bedclothes were all in disarray, with just one dimly lit lamp in the corner. I could see a long white piece of material lying on the mattress and a beautiful rug on the floor. In a corner sat the lovely Amina, holding her knees and crying quietly. She was trying to cover herself with her long dress. Her long black hair tumbled all around her body.

Ahmed was standing towering above the bride, his expression cold as ice. He appeared completely unmoved by his new brides distress. Aminas mother was also down on the floor, holding onto Ahmeds legs, crying: Please dont send her back home; her father and brothers will kill her.

Gripped with fear, I tried to hide myself behind my mothers dress. Men all around me were shouting while the women were crying. Some were calling Amina names I had not heard before, like slut and whore, while others were more sympathetic and were muttering Poor girl! or What has she done?

She couldnt have imagined this could happen, one said.

Imagine what?

Although I couldnt fully grasp what was happening, I knew that this was a dangerous situation, a matter of life and death. Some of the wedding guests were clamouring to have the girl killed, while others stood in stunned silence.

Into the midst of the crowd, which was building up into an animal frenzy, my father stepped forward and in a loud, calm voice proclaimed: No one deserves to be treated like this. Accidents can happen to any girl.

Turning to Ahmed, he said: If you send this woman back to her family then you have to leave the city too. This matter is not more important than her life. You must accept her as your bride.

With these words, the tension dissipated. Everyone fell silent. My father was a respected member of the community. He was also Ahmeds boss. I dont know how long we all waited in silence but eventually Ahmed said to my father: I respect you and your words. I will accept her. I will not send her back to her family.

The bride immediately began to sob loudly while her female relatives jumped up to thank my father. Other guests were muttering how lucky she was. After some discussion, the music started up again and the festivities resumed.

I would later learn that it was Kurdish tradition for the wedding to be consummated on the evening of the third night, while the wedding guests waited in the next room. A representative from the brides family, usually an older woman, would stay behind the bedroom door and afterwards she would present white material with blood spots to prove the virginity of the bride. This material would usually be carried ceremoniously on a tray for all of the guests to cover it with money. It was a symbol of happiness and pride in the brides virginity. Amina had failed this virginity test. There was no blood. Of course, this can happen for all kinds of reasons other than a girl having had sexual intercourse, but this was not common knowledge in my city at that time.

Although her life was spared, Amina was forever treated like a slave by her husband because he had saved her honour on that day. However, she did go on to bear him four children. This brought her a measure of happiness. From that time, she always called my father Father and my mother became a second mother to her. The couple lived nearby. I used to enjoy going to their house and playing with Aminas make-up. She always seemed so glamorous to me.

The events of Aminas wedding were to shape the entire course of my life. Although it was some while later before I fully understood what had happened, I started to question everything before me, beginning with the meaning of virginity. Why was virginity so important that a woman could be killed for it? I worried that if I grew up without my virginity, I might also be killed.