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Unrests continues in Kurdistan-Iran
7.8.2005
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TEHRAN, 6 August
(IPS) Bloody unrests continue in at least three
Iranian provinces, with Kurdish sources accusing the
clerical-led authorities of having killed “tens” of
people in Iranian Kurdish dominated areas.
Against Tehran and local officials claiming that
order has been restored in the northwestern Kurdish
towns of Mahabad, Baneh and Saqqez, where there are
widespread riots, Kurds says Revolutionary Guards
supported by anti-riot units, plainclothes men and
Law Enforcement Forces used heavy weapons in
crushing the riots.
Kurdish dissident groups say the Iranian government
has deployed large numbers of troops in Kurdish
cities in an effort to quell three weeks of civil
unrest that has left up to 20 people dead and more
than 300 wounded, according to reports from
dissident groups.
They said as many as 100,000 state security forces,
backed up by helicopter gunships had moved into the
region to crack down on pro-Kurdish demonstrations.
Kurdsat, an Iraqi-Kurdish satellite channel based in
Sulaimaniyah, reported yesterday that police had
detained as many as 1,200 people after the incident.
Further unrest was feared yesterday in Bokan and
Sinne, where up to 6,000 Special Forces soldiers
were said to have gathered. Opposition leaders
appealed for calm and called for the international
community to put pressure on the Iranian authorities
to halt the crackdown.
In a statement, the Democratic Party of Iranian
Kurdistan, outlawed in Iran and is based in northern
Iraq, urged "international organisations,
human-rights supporters and the international
community to make efforts to stop the bloodshed of
the Iranian Kurdish people by the Islamic republic
regime of Iran".
On 16 June, Iranian Intelligence Minister
Hojjatoleslam Ali Younesi accused the US and Britain
were seeking to instigate ethnic and religious
tensions in the Middle East and in Iran.
The unrest began in the town of Mahabad, in early
July, following the shooting of Shivan Qaderi, a
Kurdish opposition activist, also known as Seyed
Kamal Astam, or Astom, and two other Kurdish men, by
Iranian forces on 9 July, in circumstances where
they may not have posed an immediate threat. The
security forces then reportedly tied Shivan Qaderi’s
body to a Toyata jeep and dragged him in the
streets.
The local Iranian authorities are reported to have
confirmed that a person of this name, “who was on
the run and wanted by the judiciary”, was indeed
shot and killed by security forces at this time,
allegedly while trying to evade arrest, according to
the London-based Amnesty International.
The photos of Mr. Qaderi on the internet depicted
signs suggesting torture, including the dead man’s
bloodied face and bruised and swollen back. But
Governor Samadi said photos posted online were
different from those taken before authorities handed
over the body to Qadri’s family.
Qadri was considered a key figure in organizing
celebrations after the election of Massoud Barzani
as the first president of Iraq’s northern Kurdistan
region last month. The celebrations prompted clashes
with police in several Kurdish towns in western
Iran.
During the days following Shivan Qaderi’s death,
several thousand Mahabad residents, mainly youths,
took to the streets to protest the killings. Since
then, demonstrations have erupted in the mainly
Kurdish neighbouring towns of Sanandaj, Mahabad,
Sardasht, Piranshahr, Oshnavieh, Baneh, Sinne, Bokan
and Saqqez. The Iranian state-owned media has
reported and confirmed the unrest of the past 3
weeks, but have described the situation as due to
“hooligan and criminal elements, Amnesty added.
Kurdish activist Jalal Qhavami said Qadri was a
Kurdish nationalist who led almost all anti-regime
protests in Mahabad, which prompted police to seek
his arrest.
Ghavami said Iranian opposition Kurdish groups
including the DPIK Party and Pejvak have called on
Kurds in western Iran to begin a civil disobedience
movement.
Barzani is a Sunni Muslim Iraqi Kurd and leader of
the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Mustafa Barzani,
Massoud’s father, was commander-in-chief of the
republic of Kurdistan in Iran, headed by Qazi
Muhammad in Mahabad in 1945. Iran’s armed forces
recaptured Mahabad and dismantled the
self-proclaimed republic in 1946.
In a letter dated 22 July 2005 the organization
wrote to Iran’s Interior Minister, Abdolvahed
Mousavi-Lari, seeking clarification of the
circumstances surrounding the killing of Shivan
Qaderi , and the arrest of scores of people in
Mahabad and the surrounding areas in the days
following his death and expressed concern that the
killing may have been deliberate and that those
detained may not have access to independent lawyers
of their choice or their families and that they may
be at risk of torture or ill-treatment.
The Kurds are one of Iran’s many ethnic minority
groups, and number around 10% of the population.
They mainly live in the province of Kurdistan and
neighbouring provinces bordering Turkey and Iraq. A
UN report released last week said authorities were
denying basic amenities to Iran's ethnic and
religious minorities and in some cases seizing land.
Among those arrested during the disturbance are
prominent Kurdish human rights defenders and
activists, including (female) Dr. Roya Tolou’i, a
women’ rights activist, arrested at her home in
Sanandaj on 2 August.
According to her husband, who has not been allowed
access to her, she is detained on charges of
“disturbing the peace” and “acting against national
security”. Azad Zamani, a member of the Association
for the Defence of Children's Rights (ADCR, or
Kanoun-e Defa’ az Hoqouq-e Koudekan), was also
arrested in Sinne.
Mr. Qavami, a journalist and a member of the
editorial board of the journal “Payam-e Mardom”, was
arrested at his workplace after agents of Iran’s
security forces initially raided his residence.
Mahmoud Salehi, the spokesman for the Organisational
Committee to Establish Trade Unions, was arrested in
the early hours of 4 August, and the security forces
have also closed down two Kurdish newspapers.
According to officials that blames the unrest on the
Turkish-Kurdish rebel from the Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK), at least six people, including four
Iranian soldiers, were killed near Turkish borders.
"Four soldiers were killed and five others wounded
in an ambush near the northwestern town of
Oshnoviyeh”, said provincial deputy governor Abbas
Khorshidi, adding that "unknown gunmen opened fire
on several patrols" in a separate incident.
"It was terrorists from the PKK who carried out the
ambush", ministry spokesman Jahanbakhsh Khanjani
said, adding that the Iranian soldiers who died were
"martyred". The spokesman gave no further details of
the attack and did not elaborate on why the PKK was
held responsible rather than Iran-oriented Kurdish
rebel groups such as the DPIK and the Marxist
organization Komaleh.
Branded a terrorist organization by the United
States and the European Union, the PKK has fought
Ankara since 1984 and recently stepped up violence
in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast after calling
off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June last
year.
Tehran and Ankara are linked by an accord calling on
Iran to fight the PKK and for Turkey to fight the
Mojahedeen Khalq Organisation, an armed Iranian
opposition group based in Iraq.
Images of Astom's swollen and bloodied body
circulated on the Internet, fueling rumours that he
had been tortured and exacerbating discontent among
the Kurdish population.
Officials denied the allegations of torture.
"If regional security is upset and there is
disorder, we will act very strongly against
troublemakers", Mr. Khorshidi warned.
Mahabad is located in northwestern Iran's West
Azerbaijan province, and was established in 1946 as
the first and only Kurdish state in history.
However, the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad was
defeated later the same year.
Iranian authorities are particularly wary of ethnic
strife or potential revenge attacks, and not only in
Kurdish areas. Some seven percent of Iran's
population is Kurdish.
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