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Kurdistan-Iran: Rioting erupts in Iranian
hotbed of Kurdish nationalism
15.6.2005
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TEHRAN, June 15 (AFP)
- 8h51 - Hundreds of Iranian Kurds have clashed
violently with police in the northwestern Iranian
town of Mahabad, an historical centre of Kurdish
nationalism, the official news agency IRNA said
Wednesday.
The rioting, which came just days before Iran is due
to elect a new president, was sparked by news from
across the border in Iraq that former rebel leader
Massoud Barzani was sworn in as the first president
of Iraqi Kurdistan.
IRNA said a number of vehicles and shopfronts were
damaged "when a group of excited people" --
numbering around 300 -- took to the streets of the
town "on the pretext of joy because Massoud Barzani
got elected".
"In response to a police request to disperse, the
crowd burned tyres and inflicted damage to election
campaign posters and threw stones and bricks at
police," IRNA said.
IRNA said the unrest died down shortly before
midnight, but said Mahabad's main street was
littered with stones, bricks, shattered mosaics and
destroyed election campaign posters.
Iran's presidential election takes place on Friday.
Barzani's father was nationalist hero Mullah Mustafa
Barzani, who fought for Kurdish self-determination.
He is best remembered for leading an uprising and
emerging as president of the short-lived Kurdish
Mahabad Republic in 1946. The small republic, the
first ever Kurdish state, collapsed after an Iranian
army attack in 1947.
Mahabad, still a Kurdish-majority town, is situated
just south of Lake Urumiyeh, near Iran's border with
Turkey, and around 55 kilometres (35 miles) from the
frontier with Kurdish-run Iraq.
AFP
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