Awena is a weekly independent Kurdish

Kurdish people

The Kurdish people, or Kurds , are an Iranian people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...

 newspaper, published every Tuesday in Sulaymaniyah

Sulaymaniyah

Sulaymaniyah is a city in Iraqi Kurdistan, Iraq. It is the capital of Sulaymaniyah Governorate. Sulaymaniyah is surrounded by the Azmar Range, Goizja Range and the Qaiwan Range in the north east, Baranan Mountain in the south and the Tasluje Hills in the west. The city has a semi-arid climate with...

, Iraqi Kurdistan

Iraqi Kurdistan

Iraqi Kurdistan or Kurdistan Region is an autonomous region of Iraq. It borders Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, Syria to the west and the rest of Iraq to the south. The regional capital is Arbil, known in Kurdish as Hewlêr...

 .

Awena means “The Mirror” in Kurdish. The newspaper was founded by Asos Ahmed Hardi, former editor-in-chief of Hawlati

Hawlati

Hawlati is an independent Kurdish newspaper, published in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan and London. Tariq Fatih is the owner of the paper.Hawlati is a biweekly newspaper issued by Ranj Publishing House, published on Sundays and Wednesdays....

after he clashed with the owner of Hawlati and resigned.

Hardi is the director of the Awena (Mirror) Company, which publishes Awena.

It began publication in January 2006. Hardi took most of his team with him from Hawlati.
In 2008, Suzanne Fischer of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, was quoted as saying that Awena was the only truly independent newspaper in Iraqi Kurdistan, since it was the only one to have explained its business model.