Iranian Kurdistan

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Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

For other uses of "Kurdistan", see Kurdistan (disambiguation).

Iranian Kurdistan or Eastern Kurdistan (

Lorestan Province.[3][4]

In totality, Kurds are about 10% of Iran's total population.

Southern Kurdistan).[7][8]

Outside the traditional Kurdistan region, a sizable isolated community of Kurds live in north-eastern Iran, about 1000 km away from Iranian Kurdistan. They are referred to as the

Kurds of Khorasan and speak the Kurmanji
dialect unlike Kurds in western Iran.

History

 
People
Population
  • Homeland
  • Kurdistan
  • Northern Kurdistan
    )
  • Eastern Kurdistan
    )
  • Southern Kurdistan
    )
  • Western Kurdistan
    )
  • Diaspora
History

Ancient

Karduchian dynasties

Corduene
Zabdicene
Cyrtians
Moxoene
  • Kayusids

Medieval

Modern
Culture
Languages
Kurdish languages
Religion

Kurdish dynasties

From the 10th century to 12th century A.D., two Kurdish dynasties were ruling this region, the

Nasser-al-Din Shah
(1848–1896) ended their rule in 1867.

Seljukid and Khwarazmid period

In the 12th century CE,

Khwarazmid king, who were sent from Hamadan.[9]

Safavid period

According to the

Safavid rule, the government tried to extend its control over Kurdish-inhabited areas in western Iran. At that time, there were a number of semi-independent Kurdish emirates such as the Mukriyan (Mahabad), Ardalan (Sinne), and Shikak tribes around Lake Urmiye and northwest Iran. Kurds resisted this policy and tried to keep some form of self-rule. This led to a series of bloody confrontations between the Safavids and the Kurds. The Kurds were finally defeated, and as a result the Safavids decided to punish rebellious Kurds by forced relocation and deportation in the 15-16th century. This policy began under the reign of the Safavid King Tahmasp I
(r. 1514–1576).

Between 1534 and 1535, Tahmasp I began the systematic destruction of the old Kurdish cities and the countryside. Large numbers of Kurds from these areas found themselves deported to the Alborz mountains and Khorasan (Khurasan), as well as the heights in the central Iranian Plateau. At this time the last remnant of the ancient royal Hadhabâni (Adiabene) tribe of central Kurdistan was removed from the heartland of Kurdistan and deported to Khorasan, where they are still found today.[11][12]

The Safavid era played a substantial role in the integration of Iranian Kurdistan into the political structure of Iran. The Kurdish local elites were strongly aware of their affiliation with Iran, which helped shape Iran's western border.[13]

Battle of DimDim

Main article:
Battle of DimDim

There is a well documented historical account of a long battle in 1609–1610 between Kurds and the

Faqi Tayran
. [14][15][16]

Afshar period

Kurds took advantage of the

Fars.[17]

Qajar period

In 1880, Shaykh Ubaydullah, a Kurdish leader, engaged in a series of revolts against the Iranian government. These revolts were successfully suppressed by the

Reza Shah Pahlavi.[19]

Kurds in modern Iran

Simko revolts against Reza Shah

Main article:
Simko Shikak revolt

The weakness of the Persian government during

Hewraman region took control of the region between Marivan and north of Halabja and remained independent until 1925. In 1922, Reza Khan (who later became the first Pahlavi monarch), took action against Kurdish leaders. Simko was forced to abandon his region in the fall of 1922, and spent eight years in hiding. When the Iranian government persuaded him to submit, he was ambushed and killed around Ushno (Oshnavieh) in 1930. After this, Reza Shah pursued a crude but effective policy against the Kurds. Hundreds of Kurdish chiefs were deported and forced into exile. Their lands were also confiscated by the government.[20]

World War II

When

Mariwan in western Iran. He was finally driven out of the region by the Persian Army in the fall of 1944.[21]

Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad

Main article: Republic of Mahabad

Although Iran had declared its

Oshnaviyeh in Iran, not even all of Iranian Kurdistan supported the experiment, let alone the Kurds in other states.[22] The Republic of Mahabad
, as it is often called, lasted less than a year, as the end of the war and the withdrawal of the occupying Soviet forces allowed the central government to defeat the separatists and return Kurdistan to Iran.

Islamic Revolution and the Kurds

Main article: 1979 Kurdish rebellion in Iran

Kurdish political organizations were enthusiastic supporters of the revolution against the

Ayatollah Khomeini
to power in February 1979. The Shah had shown himself to be no friend of Kurdish aspirations for greater autonomy and a loosening of Tehran's control over their affairs.

The Kurds, with their different language and traditions and their cross-border alliances, were seen as vulnerable to exploitation by foreign powers who wished to destabilize the young republic.

The crisis deepened after Kurds were denied seats in the "Assembly of Experts" gathering in 1979, which were responsible for writing the new

Ghassemlou, the elected representative of the region, from participating in the assembly of experts' first meeting.[23]

The wave of nationalism engulfed eastern Kurdistan after the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty in line with a series of anti-revolutionary revolts across the country. In early 1979 armed conflict broke out between armed Kurdish factions and the Iranian revolutionary government's security forces. The Kurdish forces included primarily the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI) and the leftist Komalah (Revolutionary Organization of Kurdish Toilers).[24]

In a speech in December 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini called the concept of ethnic minorities contrary to Islamic doctrines. He also accused those "who do not wish Muslim countries to be united" in creating the issue of nationalism among minorities. His views were shared by many in the clerical leadership.[25]

Kurdish movement between Shia Kurds in southern Iranian Kurdistan

David McDowall has argued that since the 1990s Kurdish nationalism has seeped into the Shia Kurdish area partly due to outrage against government's violent suppression of Kurds farther north,[26] but David Romano reject such claims noting that there's no evidence of an active guerrilla insurgency in the area.[27] Although, there is a new rise of Kurdish identity movement in the southern parts of Iranian Kurdistan, which has risen up from the first decade of 21st century that shows itself in the way of formation of an armed group called the Partisans of Southern Kurdistan and some other organizations specially about Yarsani people of that parts of Kurdistan.[28]

1996 demonstrations

On December 2, 1996, the death of a prominent Sunni clergyman, Mulla Mohammed Rabiei, in Kermanshah led to violent clashes between Sunni Kurds and the security forces. Mulla Rabiei was the prayer leader in the Al-Shafe'i mosque in Kermanshah. The protests continued for three days and spread to neighboring towns in the region.[29]

Khatami period

West Azerbaijan
A view of Sanandaj, the second-largest city in Iranian Kurdistan[30][31][32]

In 1997, Sunni Kurds like many other Iranians took part in the presidential election. Both civilian and military Kurdish opposition groups requested Kurds "not to be indifferent" toward the election.

Mohammad Sadiq Kaboudvand was among the latter who started an independent human rights
association to defend the rights of the Kurdish people.

1999 demonstrations

In February 1999, Kurdish nationalists took to the streets in several cities such as

Abdullah Öcalan. This was viewed as "trans-nationalization" of the Kurdish movement.[34] These protests were violently suppressed by the government forces. According to human rights groups, at least 20 people were killed.[35]

Discrimination against Sunni Muslims

Despite the fact that more than one million Sunnis live in Tehran, many of them Kurds, no Sunni mosque exists to serve their religious needs.[36]

The Shivan Qaderi incident

On July 9, 2005, a Kurdish opposition activist, Shivan Qaderi[37] (also known as Shwane Qadri or Sayed Kamal Asfaram), and two other Kurdish men were shot by Iranian security forces in Mahabad.

For the next six weeks, riots and protests erupted in Kurdish towns and villages throughout Eastern Kurdistan such as

Baluchistan
in eastern Iran) with scores killed and injured, and an untold number arrested without charge.

On 13 March 2006, Saleh Nikbakht, a well-known Iranian human rights lawyer who is Mr. Qaderi's lawyer, announced that Qaderi's murderer was a member of the police who shot the victim illegally. He also added that the murderer and the one who ordered the act are under investigation and the judiciary system has been cooperative up to now.

Political prisoners and executions

Kurds have suffered a long history of discrimination in Iran. In a report released in 2008, Amnesty International said that Kurds have been a particular target of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Kurds' "social, political and cultural rights have been repressed, as have their economic aspirations."[39] As a result, many human rights activists in Iran often shift their focus to specifically identify the Iranian authorities' violations of human rights against the Kurdish minority. However, according to Amnesty International, those activists who do "link their human rights work – drawing attention to the government's failure to observe international human rights standards - to their Kurdish identity they risk further violations of their rights."[39]

At the beginning of the 21st century, a number of Kurdish activists, writers, and teachers have been arrested for their work and were sentenced to death.

PJAK
- have taken up arms against the state.

In November 2009, Iran executed

Ehsan Fattahian - the first of over a dozen political prisoners on death row - despite an international campaign calling for his release.[41] Authorities accused Fattahian of carrying arms for an "illegal organization" and sentenced him to several years in prison. Fattahian never confessed to carrying arms and was not given a fair trial, nor was he permitted access to his lawyer, and the Komala - the illegal organization he was accused of associating with - claimed that he had left the group a long time ago. Fattahian attempted to appeal, and when he did so, he was sentenced to death for "enmity against God".[42]
His execution was condemned by human rights groups and activists internationally.

In January 2010, Iran executed a second Kurdish political prisoner, Fasih Yasamani, for "enmity against God". Like Fattahian, Yasamani was tortured and authorities tried to force him to confess, but he refused. He was also denied a fair trial.[43]

Without notifying the families or lawyers of the political prisoners, Iranian authorities ordered the execution of four more Kurdish political prisoners - Ali Heydarian, Farhad Vakili, Mehdi Eslamian, Shirin Alam Hooli, and Farzad Kamangar, a teacher who received a lot of attention internationally following his arrest - in Iran on May 9, 2010. The four political prisoners suffered severe torture at the hands of Iranian authorities and were also forced to confess their memberships in an illegal organization - namely PJAK. None of the activists were given fair trials nor did they have access to their lawyers. Amnesty International described the executions as "a blatant attempt to intimidate members of the Kurdish minority."[44]

Despite repeated international calls demanding the release or retrial of these four political prisoners, all were executed without any prior notice or warning. Following the executions, Iranian authorities refused to return the bodies of those executed to their families.[45]

As of May 2010, there were at least 16 other Kurdish political prisoners on death row. Not one case has been reported as having received a fair trial.

Kurdish militant group operating inside Iran

The Kurdistan Free Life Party or PJAK. Feb 4, 2009, Stuart Levey, U.S. Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence stated "With today's action, we are exposing PJAK's (Free Life Party of Kurdistan) terrorist ties to the PKK and supporting Turkey's efforts to protect its citizens from attack."[46]

See also

Notes

References

  1. UNPO
    (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization): "Iranian Kurdistan, also known as eastern Kurdistan."
  2. ^ "Bazar û cihên giştî li Rojhilatê Kurdistanê qerebalix dibin". Rûdaw (in Kurdish). 10 April 2020. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
  3. ISBN 9781440842573
    .
  4. ^ Fattah, Ismaïl Kamandâr (2000). Les dialectes kurdes méridionaux. Acta Iranica 37. p. 5.
  5. ^ "The Time of the Kurds". CFR. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  6. ^ "Iran Provinces". Archived from the original on 2016-10-22. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  7. ^ Iranian Kurdistan entry for the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO). “Iranian Kurdistan, also known as eastern Kurdistan.”
  8. ^ Bengio, Ofra (2014). Kurdish Awakening: Nation Building in a Fragmented Homeland. University of Texas Press. p. 2. Hence the terms: rojhalat (east, Iran), bashur (south, Iraq), bakur (north, Turkey), and rojava (west, Syria).
  9. OCLC 258059134
    .
  10. ^ "-AFAWIDS [VIII:765b]". Archived from the original on 2005-12-16. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
  11. ^ Keo - History Archived 2008-05-01 at the Wayback Machine
  12. ^ Iran Archived 2008-04-03 at the Wayback Machine, under the title "Khurasani Kurdish Dances"
  13. ^ Yamaguchi 2021, p. 568.
  14. ^ DIMDIM Archived 2008-10-11 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ISBN 978-0-89158-296-0
    .
  16. ^ O. Dzh. Dzhalilov, Kurdski geroicheski epos "Zlatoruki Khan" (The Kurdish heroic epic "Gold-hand Khan"), Moscow, 1967, pp. 5-26, 37-39, 206.
  17. ISBN 978-1-85043-416-0
    , p. 67
  18. ^ Amanat, Abbas. Pivot of the Universe: Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831-1896. London: I. B. Tauris, 1997, p. 408)
  19. ISBN 978-0-8108-7507-4
    .
  20. JSTOR 3017874
    .
  21. ^ Elphinston (1946, pp. 97–98)
  22. ^ Gunter.pdf (10 October 2007). https://web.archive.org/web/20071010090831/http://www.kurdishrightsconference.org/presentations/gunter.pdf. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 October 2007. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  23. ^ Ali Reza Nourizadeh (Persian - Arabic - English) Archived 2012-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
  24. ^ D. and in khorasan [Cultural & Civil society of Khorasani Kurds, www.cskk.org]. McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds, 1996, Chapter 13, "Subjects of the Shi'i Republic," pp. 261-287.
  25. ^ Ayatollah Khomeini's Speech, Radio Tehran, December 17, 1979. Quoted in David McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds (London: I.B. Tauris, 1996, p. 271
  26. ISBN 978-1-85043-416-0
    , p. 278
  27. OCLC 61425259
    .
  28. ^ Abdullazada, Sakar. "A Rise in Nationalism in Eastern Kurdistan". Kurdnas. Archived from the original on 2 May 2015. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
  29. ^ IRAN Archived 2013-03-13 at the Wayback Machine
  30. ISBN 978-0-415-42128-7, p. 171.
  31. ISBN 978-0-7453-2663-4
    , The Kurds in Iraq: The Past, Present and Future, p. 28.
  32. ISBN 978-0-8444-1187-3, p. 94.
  33. ^ Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East - Sign In Page Archived 2009-02-15 at the Wayback Machine
  34. ^ Natali, D., Manufacturing Identity and Managing Kurds in Iraq, Turkey and Iran: A Study in Evolution of Nationalism, PhD Dissertation in Political Science, University of Pennsylvania, 2000, p.238
  35. ^ Iran : Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 1999 , Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, February 23, 2000.
  36. ^ IRAN Archived 2013-03-13 at the Wayback Machine
  37. ^ PJAK Archived 2011-05-26 at the Wayback Machine
  38. ^ Iran Focus-Iran sends in troops to crush border unrest - Iran (General) - News Archived 2008-03-12 at the Wayback Machine
  39. ^ a b "Iran: Human rights abuses against the Kurdish minority". 30 July 2008. Retrieved 2010-05-12.
  40. ^ Kurdish man at imminent risk of execution in Iran | Amnesty International Archived 2015-02-18 at the Wayback Machine
  41. ^ Iran Executes Kurdish Political Activist - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2010 Archived 2010-10-24 at the Wayback Machine
  42. ^ Iran executes Kurdish man | Amnesty International Archived 2015-02-18 at the Wayback Machine
  43. ^ After Ehsan Fatahiyan another Activist Fasih Yasamani has been Executed Archived 2010-01-06 at the Wayback Machine
  44. ^ Iran executes five political prisoners - Amnesty International Australia Archived 2011-04-05 at the Wayback Machine
  45. ^ Iran Denies Families Bodies of Executed Kurds - NYTimes.com Archived 2010-05-16 at the Wayback Machine
  46. ^ "U.S. brands anti-Iran Kurdish group terrorist". Reuters. 2017-02-04. Archived from the original on 2016-11-11. Retrieved 2017-05-21.

Sources

  • Yamaguchi, Akihiko (2021). "The Kurdish frontier under the Safavids". In Matthee, Rudi (ed.). The Safavid World. Routledge. pp. 556–571.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Iranian_Kurdistan&oldid=1191555684"