Iranian governments—under both the monarchy and the theocracy—have suppressed Kurdish identity by limiting to use of the Kurdish language in schools and government services.
The constitution declared that Persian was the official language of Iran; it required members of parliament be able to speak, read and write Persian. Reza Shah Pahlavi, who ruled from to , tried to centralize control over Iran by assimilating minorities. The government banned the use of minority languages in education, administration and the media.
Mohammad Reza Shah, who ruled from to , allowed the broadcast of Kurdish radio programs. But the shah reduced the power of Kurdish tribal leaders, known as khans. Since the revolution, the Islamic Republic has continued to use Persian as the official language.
But it has allowed the use of Kurdish in publications and the media, albeit under state supervision. Under President Hassan Rouhani, who took office in , the government has allowed more Kurdish cultural activities. In July , the judiciary sentenced Zahra Mohammadi, a year-old Kurdish civil rights activist, to 10 years in prison for undermining national security. Mohammadi directed the Nojin Cultural Association, a group that teaches Kurdish language and literature.
She was initially accused of having links to two armed opposition groups, but those charges were dropped. The Kurds have faced suppression and neglect from the central government. In early , Iranian authorities arrested dozens of Kurdish civil society activists, labor rights activists, environmentalists, writers and university students, including individuals with no known history of activism.
Between January 6 and February 3, authorities detained at least 88 men and eight women in five provinces: Alborz, Kermanshah, Kurdistan, Tehran and West Azerbaijan provinces.
Three dozen civil society and human rights organizations—including Human Rights Watch, the Center for Human Rights in Iran and the Kurdistan Human Rights Network— issued a joint call to the international community to respond. The job is dangerous due to harsh weather, mountainous terrain, land mines and Iranian border patrols.
In , 50 kulbars were reportedly killed and injured by border guards. In the census , the province had a literacy rate of Many rural districts in Kurdistan only have primary schools. The central government has also discriminated against Kurds for their faith.
Iran is a predominantly Shiite country. The state has also occasionally harassed Sunni clerics. The screening process has limited the employment prospects for non-Shiite Kurds and other minorities with the government — the largest employer in Iran.
The movement, which is banned in Iran, engages in both political and military activities. Its founder was Qazi Muhammad, who led the short-lived Republic of Mahabad. Muhammad was hanged for treason in For the next three decades, the PDKI operated primarily underground.
In , a ceasefire was agreed after secret talks were held. The ceasefire collapsed in July , after a suicide bombing blamed on IS killed 33 young activists in the mainly Kurdish town of Suruc, near the Syrian border. The PKK accused the authorities of complicity and attacked Turkish soldiers and police. Since then, several thousand people - including hundreds of civilians - have been killed in clashes in south-eastern Turkey. Turkey has maintained a military presence in northern Syria since August , when it sent troops and tanks over the border to support a Syrian rebel offensive against IS.
Those forces captured the key border town of Jarablus, preventing the YPG-led SDF from seizing the territory itself and linking up with the Kurdish enclave of Afrin to the west. Dozens of civilians were killed and tens of thousands displaced. Turkey's government says the YPG and the PYD are extensions of the PKK, share its goal of secession through armed struggle, and are terrorist organisations that must be eliminated. Turkey's fear of a reignited Kurdish flame. Profile: The PKK. Before the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in most lived in the cities of Damascus and Aleppo, and in three, non-contiguous areas around Kobane, Afrin, and the north-eastern city of Qamishli.
Syria's Kurds have long been suppressed and denied basic rights. Some , have been denied citizenship since the s, and Kurdish land has been confiscated and redistributed to Arabs in an attempt to "Arabize" Kurdish regions. When the uprising evolved into a civil war, the main Kurdish parties publicly avoided taking sides. In mid, government forces withdrew to concentrate on fighting the rebels elsewhere, and Kurdish groups took control in their wake. In March , they announced the establishment of a "federal system" that included mainly Arab and Turkmen areas captured from IS.
The PYD says it is not seeking independence, but insists that any political settlement to end the conflict in Syria must include legal guarantees for Kurdish rights and recognition of Kurdish autonomy.
President Assad has vowed to retake "every inch" of Syrian territory, whether by negotiations or military force. His government has also rejected Kurdish demands for autonomy, saying that "nobody in Syria accepts talk about independent entities or federalism".
They have historically enjoyed more national rights than Kurds living in neighbouring states, but also faced brutal repression. But it was not until that he launched a full armed struggle. In the late s, the government began settling Arabs in areas with Kurdish majorities, particularly around the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, and forcibly relocating Kurds. In Afghanistan we have fostered strong partnerships with amazing local organizations representing ethnic and religious minorities.
They were doing outstanding work, educating minority community members about their rights, collecting evidence of discrimination and human rights abuses, and carrying out advocacy. Not all have been able to flee. Many had no option but to go into hiding. Some did not have a valid passport. Activists can no longer carry out the work they had embarked on. They can no longer draw a salary, which means they cannot feed their families.
With a season of failed crops and a cold winter ahead, the future is bleak for too many. We refuse to leave Afghanistan behind. We are asking you today to stand by us as we stand by them. We will also use your donations to support our Afghan partners to pay their staff until they can regroup and make new plans, to use their networks to gather and send out information when it is safe to do so, and to seek passports and travel options for those who are most vulnerable and who have no option but to flee to safety.
Azadeh worked for a global organization offering family planning services. Standing for everything the Taliban systematically reject, Azadeh had no option but to flee to Pakistan. MRG is working with our partners in Pakistan to support many brave Afghans who have escaped Afghanistan because of their humanitarian or human rights work or their faith.
They are now in various secure locations established by our local partners on the ground in Pakistan. Although they are safer in Pakistan than Afghanistan, Hazara Shia and other religious minorities are also persecuted there. We need your help, to support those who put their lives on the line for basic human rights principles we all believe in: equality, mutual respect, and freedom of belief and expression. The situation on the ground changes daily as more people arrive and some leave.
Aluminium mining in Baphlimali, India, has caused environment devastation and has wrecked the lifestyle of thousands of Adivasis. For centuries, Adivasi communities like the Paraja, Jhodia, Penga and Kondh have been living amidst the Baphlimali foothills. For generations they have lived in harmony with nature.
They lived through rain fed subsistence agriculture of millet, cereals, pulses, rice and collection of non-timber forest produce, e. With widespread mining activities and linked deforestation, they have lost access to forest products and to the much needed pasture land in the vicinity of their villages. Your help will mean that MRG can support communities like these to help decision makers listen better to get priorities right for local people and help them to protect their environment and restore what has been damaged.
The above picture is of a tribal woman forcibly displaced from her home and land by District Forest Officers in the district of Ganjam, Odisha.
Her cashew plantation burned in the name of protection of forests. Please note that the picture is to illustrate the story and is not from Baphlimali. Esther is a member of the indigenous Ogiek community living in the Mau Forest in Kenya. Her family lives in one of the most isolated and inaccessible parts of the forest, with no roads, no health facilities and no government social infrastructure. The Ogiek were evicted from some forest areas, which have since been logged.
The Ogiek consider it essential to preserve their forest home; others are content to use it to make money in the short term. Esther has a year-old daughter living with a physical disability who has never attended basic school, as it is over 12 kilometres away.
Young children living in these areas face challenges such as long distances to school, fears of assault by wild animals and dangers from people they may encounter on the journey.
Because the Ogiek have no legally recognised land rights, despite hundreds of years of residence in this forest, the government is refusing to provide social services or public facilities in the area. Ensuring that the Ogiek can access health services and education is essential and will mean that they can continue living on their land, protecting and conserving the environment there. We are also advocating for equity in access to education and health by supporting OPDP to ensure that budgets for services are allocated fairly and are used well.
The consequence of this wealth is that successive governments — colonial and post-colonial — have seen greater value in the land than the people.
This has led to extensive open cast mining which is doubly damaging to the climate, despite the opposition of the Khadia tribe. Archana is a rare example of an indigenous activist who is involved in UN debates; we need to support many more indigenous peoples and acknowledge their expertise. Minority Rights Group acts as a bridge between excluded communities and decision makers, telling indigenous peoples about opportunities to contribute and reminding decision makers that they need to listen to and involve all, particularly those with proven strategies of living in harmony with nature.
Title Dr. Miss Mr. Mr Mrs Mx. They are the third most important ethnic group in the country after the Persians and Azarbaijanis and account for about 9 percent of the total population.
They are concentrated in the Zagros Mountain area along the western frontiers with Turkey and Iraq and adjacent to the Kurdish populations of both those countries. Kurds also live in the Soviet Union and Syria.
Historically, the Kurds of Iran have been both urban and rural, with as much as half the rural population practicing pastoral nomadism in different periods of history. By the mids, fewer than 15 percent of all Kurds were nomadic. In addition, during the s there was substantial migration of rural Kurds to such historic Kurdish cities as Bakhtaran known as Kermanshah until , Sanandaj, and Mahabad, as well as to larger towns such as Baneh, Bijar, Ilam, Islamabad known as Shahabad until , Saqqez, Sar-e Pol-e Zahab, and Sonqor.
There are also scatterings of Kurds in the provinces of Fars, Kerman, and Baluchestan va Sistan, and there is a large group of approximately , living in a small area of northern Khorasan.
0コメント