Eighth Mirbad’s Poetry Festival held with absence of Poet Mudhaffar al-Nawab

BASRA / IraqiNews.com: Famous Iraqi Poet, Mudhaffar al-Nawab, under whose name Iraq’s 8th Murbad Poetry Festival was opened in Basra city on Thursday, passed on attending the occasion, due to his deteriorated health condition, a Festival source said.   “Poet Mudhaffar al-Nawab had promised to attend the festivities of the 8th Murbad Poetry Festival, but he apologized due to his deteriorated health condition that does not allow him to travel from the UAE, where he resides now,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency.   The source had said early in the day that the Mirbad Poetry Festival’s session this year was opened under the name of Poet Mudhaffar al-Nawab, in appreciation for his poetry achievements and his struggle against the dictatorship during Iraq’s former Baath regime.   In 1963, Nawab was fored to leave Iraq, following the conflict between Iraqi Arab Nationalists, including Baath Party and the Communists.     The Communists had suffered from prosecution by the Baathists, who ruled Iraq in 1963 and Mudhaffar was forced to escape to southern Iraq’s Marshland in Basra, but the Iranian intelligence arrested him, when tried to escape to Russia through Iraq and handed him to the Iraqi security, after which he was sentenced for execution, but efforts of his close relatives had helped changing the decision to life imprisonment.   After spending years in southern Iraq’s Nugrat al-Salman desert prison, close to the Saudi borders, he was transferred to southwest Iraq’s Hilla prison, where he succeeded to escape, together with a group of his comrades, who dug a tunnel under the prison and fled away.   After that he moved to several Arab and European countries, he settled in Syria, where he lived for a long time.   Noteworthy is that the 1st session of Mirbad’s Poetry Festival was held in Basra in 1971 and continued its sessions till the downfall of the former Baath regime in 2003.   In 2004, the Mirbad Poetry Festival took an independent cultural trend, away from politicization, that was imposed by the former regime.   SKH (TF)/SR 530