First modification:
In the midst of the crisis, Tehran claimed responsibility for the attacks on the bases of the Iranian Kurdish opposition in Iraq, seeking, according to the Kurds, to provoke a military confrontation to forget the protest movement that has been developing in Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurdish woman. In the country, this minority is paying a high price for its mobilization against the regime.
“Iran is trying to divert attention from the ongoing protests over the death of Mahsa Amini,” researcher and former deputy secretary general of Iran’s Kurdistan Democratic Party Asso Hassan Zadeh said in a telephone interview on Wednesday, September 28. , who has just learned that several Iranian missiles have hit the headquarters of his opposition party in Erbil province, located across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan. Also, Zadeh is worried about the fate of his relatives.
The number of victims of these attacks is high. Several missile and other attacks carried out, according to Baghdad, by “20 explosive-laden drones” killed at least 13 people, including a pregnant woman whose baby was saved. The attacks also injured around 50 people, mostly civilians, including women and children.
The PDKI was targeted, but also several armed Iranian Kurdish opposition parties, especially in the Suleimaniyeh region. According to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Iraq, an Iranian refugee camp and “a primary school with students” were also hit by these bombings east of Erbil.
Tehran was quick to claim responsibility for the attack, which was carried out to dismantle “terrorist groups,” according to the Revolutionary Guards, the Islamic Republic’s ideological army. Iraqi Kurdistan is home to several Iranian Kurdish opposition groups historically opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran, although their activities have declined in recent years.
A resurgence of tensions with the Kurds
Senior officials in Tehran have repeatedly linked these attacks to the unrest in Iran.
On the eve of the attacks, General Abbas Nilforoushan, a senior representative of the Revolutionary Guards, spoke of “infiltrators” in Iran “to sow disorder.”
“These counterrevolutionary elements were stopped during the unrest in the northwest, so we had to defend ourselves, react and bomb the area around the border strip,” he said after the Iranian artillery fire, which took place on Sunday and Monday.
These targeted the border areas between the Kurdish region of Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan, without causing significant damage.
This is not the first time that Iran has fired on Kurdish targets in Iraq. In March of this year, the Revolutionary Guards attacked what they called “an Israeli strategic hub” in Erbil, which was denied by the Iraqi Kurdistan authorities, who stated that it was only a civilian site near a US consulate building.
Increased repression in Iranian Kurdistan
In Iranian Kurdistan, protesters have suffered heavy losses. At least 25 people have died (more than a third of those killed in the country since the start of the revolt) and in the region there are 1,000 injured and more than 1,500 detained, according to Asso Hassan Zadeh as of Tuesday night. “The repression here is always stronger. Here the police shoot more easily, because there is a militarized climate. They know that the Kurds are more mobilized and more politicized,” explains the militant researcher. “There is also very limited media coverage in Iranian Kurdistan, because journalists are never allowed to go there.”
Selective repression in this Sunni region of the West, which is distrusted by the central authorities, is not new. “More than 50% of political prisoners in the country have been Kurdish so far. And the death penalty is more systematic there than in other places,” says Asso Hassan Zadeh.
This was confirmed by the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman. In a report published in Marchsaid he was “alarmed by the disproportionate number of executions of members of minority communities, in particular the Baluchi and Kurdish minorities”.
As protests continue in Iran, especially in Sanandaj, authorities have begun accusing foreign powers of fomenting the movement. Ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raissi warned on Wednesday that “chaos is unacceptable” and accused the United States, the sworn enemy of the Islamic Republic, of stirring up the protests.
The Kurds, “because of their proximity to the border, to other Kurdish parties abroad and to the rest of the world,” are easy prey, Asso Hassan Zadeh said.
According to a latest report by the official Fars agency on Tuesday, “some 60 people have been killed” since the start of the protests across the country. The authorities have also reported the arrest of more than 1,200 protesters. The NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), based in Norway, reported on Monday the death of 76 people.
Article adapted from its original in French
#death #Mahsa #Amini #Iranian #Kurds #find #difficult #situation