The Kurds in Iran - A Forgotten Struggle

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