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The Kurds
in Iran - A Forgotten Struggle
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28 August 2004
KurdishMedia.com - By
Mohammed Alyar |
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Iran is a
multi-national country of nearly 70 million population, where
Persians, Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Baluchis, Turkmans and Arabs live
together, each with their own distinctive traditions, customs,
language and culture.
Successive Iranian governments have promoted the Persian language and
culture as the official Iranian language and culture at the expense of
other nationalities, while their just demands for cultural recognition
have often been met with brutality and repression.
Not long after 1979 revolution, Kurdish demands for regional autonomy
were met with a policy of repression and military force. The new
Iranian authority dispatched 200,000 of its armed forces to Kurdistan,
and Khomeini in his infamous speech on 19 August 1979 declared a Jihad
on the Kurdish population in Iran labelling them “children of Satan”
and their political leaders as “Enemies of God”. This military
campaign up to now has cost thousands of lives.
The Kurds, who form around 16% of the Iranian population, already
severely repressed under the previous regime, continued to suffer
multiple violations of their most fundamental rights under the current
regime. The Islamic Republic during its rule over Iran for more than
two decades has implemented a series of economic, political, cultural,
social and religious discriminatory policies that have brought about
widespread unemployment, poverty and forced migration. Drug abuse
(especially among the youth) which was unheard off twenty years ago,
has now reached endemic proportions.
Historically, Iranian Kurdistan has been one of the most
underdeveloped parts of the country. Farming still remains the main
source of employment and income for the majority of the population.
Lack of investment in modern methods of farming and in infrastructure
have resulted in the farm produce perishing before reaching the
market, and even when they reach the market they are not able to
compete in quality and price with produce from elsewhere. This
economic stagnation forces Kurdish farmers (specially the young ones)
out of the region in search of job opportunities elsewhere. They
abandon their farms and join the migrant communities living in
shantytowns on the outskirts of major industrial cities. This mass
migration of the young population in turn forces the region into a
spiral of poverty and depravation, which the regime seems to be either
unwilling or unable to stop.
Centralized power, and appointment of non-Kurdish administrators, who
often come from the security establishment, at all levels of
government in the Kurdish regions, have alienated the Kurdish
population from the governing authorities, resulting in mass protests
by the population at every available opportunity. The regime’s
response to protests is always brutal and results in imprisonment,
terror, torture and killing of whoever dare to oppose its tyrannical
policies. Even during the past few years when the reformist parliament
and president tried to curb non-judicial imprisonment and executions,
elsewhere in Iran, in Kurdistan the ultimate power has always been in
the hands of the security establishment. They have had a free hand to
do as they wish with the population. In practice Kurdistan has been
under a non- declared martial law.
The human rights abuses in Iran are well documented by the
international human rights organizations. Amnesty International in its
2004 report states that during the year January to December 2003, “At
least 108 people were executed, often in public. The death penalty was
carried out on long-term political prisoners, apparently to intimidate
political or ethnic groups such as Kurds and Arabs”.
During the same period, according to Amnesty International, “At least
197 people were flogged or sentenced to be flogged, often in large
groups. At least 11 people were sentenced to have fingers and limbs
amputated as judicial punishments". Amnesty points out that the total
figures may have been considerably higher.
Amnesty International also highlights the case of a long-term Kurdish
prisoner who was executed in 2003: “In February, long-term political
prisoner Sasan Al-e Ken’an, a supporter of the banned Komala party,
was executed. At the time of his execution his mother was in Tehran
seeking a meeting with members of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention (WGAD) who were visiting Iran. On her return home to the
town of Sanandaj, she went to visit her son in prison. She was
informed that he had been hanged and told not to make a "fuss" but to
bury him quickly."
Physical elimination of the leaders of the Kurdish movement by state
sponsored acts of terrorism is another aspect of the Islamic
government policy towards the Kurdish question in the country. On 13
July 1989 in Vienna, Dr. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, Secretary-General of
the PDKI, and two of his associates, were assasinated at the
negotiating table, by envoys of the Iranian government. His successor,
Dr. Sadegh Sharafkandi, and three of his associates, were also
assassinated on 17 September 1992 in Berlin by terrorists sponsored by
the Iranian regime. Subsequently, German justice officially declared
the highest-ranking Iranian leaders responsible for ordering the
assassination of the Kurdish leaders in Berlin.
Many other Kurdish activists were assassinated by agents of the
Iranian regime in Iraqi Kurdistan and elsewhere. KDPI in a recent
communiqué publicized the fate of seven of its activists abducted in
1996 by the Islamic Movement of Iraqi Kurdistan and handed over to
Islamic regime of Iran, six of whom have since been executed.
The Iranian regime’s religious policies are also discriminatory
against the Kurdish populations. Since the majority of the Kurdish
people in Iran are Sunnis, they are considered a religious minority.
The constitution explicitly defines the state religion as Shia’a
Islam. Building of large Shia’a mosques in Kurdish towns where the
overwhelming majority of the populations are Sunni and a massive
propaganda campaign by the government, aimed at convert the young
Kurds to Shia’a Islam, are state policies designed to change the
population composition in favour of the Shia’a religion.
The Iranian government’s educational policies are also discriminatory
against the Kurdish people. In Iran, although the right of children to
study in their mother tongue is enshrined in the constitution, the
Islamic government after a quarter of a century has not implemented
this policy. The children in Kurdistan, from their first year in
primary school, are forced to study in Persian. This policy of forced
education in the country’s official language, which is carried out in
the name of the unity of the country, puts Kurdish children at a
considerable learning disadvantage compared to native speaking
Persians . These unfavorable practices and policies are continued to
university level. There are very few universities in Kurdish cities,
and a large percentage of the places in all Iranian universities are
reserved one-way or another for the children of martyrs and supporters
of the regime, a fact which by default prevents Kurdish students from
accessing these places.
However, these discriminatory policies and systematic harassment and
killing of Kurdish people by the Islamic regime have not been able to
crush the resistance of Kurdish people. They continue the struggle for
their human rights and their national democratic aspirations.
We have witnessed in recent years, a new growth and formation of
political and cultural consciousness among the Kurdish people all over
Kurdistan. A broad section of the population, especially the youth,
who are fed up with the repression of their national rights, growing
problems of mass poverty and unemployment, have started a new
political movement in Iranian Kurdistan. Young people, who do not see
any future for themselves under the tyranny and military occupation in
Iranian Kurdistan, are considering more and more the necessity of
organizing resistance against the Islamic Republic.
In conclusion I would like to stress that stability in the Middle East
and democratization in the region can only be achieved if a
satisfactory political solution to the Kurdish question is found.
Mohammed Alyar is an Iranian Kurdish human rights campaigner |
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