30 April 2023 :
(27 April, 2023) - KHRN has released its annual report on the situation of human rights in Iran, with a special focus on the problems of the Kurdish ethnic group
KHRN is based on the Islamic year, which is March 20220 to March 2023.
The report covers the human rights situation of Kurds in Iran from 21 March 2022 to 20 March 2023. As in previous years, the violation of the rights of Kurdish people on the basis of their language, religion, culture, gender, sexual orientation, class, political choices, etc. continued due to the discriminatory laws of the Islamic Republic and the repressive and violent actions of the security, military, judicial and executive institutions of the government.
In this report, statistics have been collected on people killed during recent anti-government protests, people arrested, killings and wounding of kolbars, killings of civilians, executions, killings and assassinations of opposition forces, femicide cases, civilian deaths caused by landmine explosions, and deaths and injuries at work.
Despite the efforts of the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) to inform and document numerous cases of human rights violations in Kurdistan, it is necessary to emphasise that the statistics and information provided in this report only include those that have been previously confirmed and published by KHRN, and in cases where news and information from other sources have been used, KHRN has taken the necessary measures to independently verify them. However, we believe that this report does not include all cases of violations of the rights of Kurdish civilians in Iran, and there are certainly many other cases that have not been reported for various reasons, including pressure from the security institutions on individuals and families to prevent them from speaking to the media and organisations.
During this period, we also witnessed massive and unprecedented anti-government protests in many cities in Iran, which are still ongoing. This uprising, known as the Revolution of Zhina or Jin, Jiyan, Azadi (meaning Woman, Life, Freedom in Kurdish) or Zan, Zendegi Azadi (meaning Woman, Life, Freedom in Persian), began after the killing of the Kurdish woman Zhina Mahsa Amini by the government, which was followed by people gathering in front of Kasra Hospital in Tehran on 16 September 2022, and with a large presence of people at Ms Amini’s funeral in her hometown of Saqqez, Kurdistan province.
Zhina Mahsa Amini was arrested by the Morality Police on 13 September 2022 in one of Tehran’s streets for wearing her hijab “inappropriately”. Less than two hours after being taken to the Morality Police building on Vozara Street in Tehran, she was taken to Kasra Hospital in an unconscious state due to the severity of the blows to her head inflicted by the officers. According to published reports, Amini was brain dead when she was taken to hospital. She died three days later, on 16 September, at Kasra Hospital in Tehran.
Although the Islamic Republic, as usual, announced Amini’s cause of death as a heart attack caused by an underlying illness, her family rejected this claim, insisting that their child was perfectly healthy before her arrest. Several eyewitnesses, who were among the detainees in the same van that took Amini to a detention centre, later confirmed that police officers used violence and severely beat the young woman, fracturing her skull. According to Amini’s lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, no judicial action has been taken in this case and the investigation has been conducted without the presence of her family and lawyer.
The killing of Zhina Mahsa Amini by the government led to a massive wave of anti-government protests in Iran, of which the different cities of Kurdistan were and are among the main centres. During these unprecedented protests, thousands of people were arrested and hundreds of people were killed by the military-security forces of the Islamic Republic. Thousands of people were also injured as a result of shooting and beating by the military-security forces, some of them with irreparable injuries, including blindness.
Many of the detainees remain in detention centres and prisons with arrest warrants or prison sentences. Meanwhile, at least eight Kurdish civilians detained in Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj, Sanandaj and Orumiyeh have been charged with “enmity against God” (moharebeh) and “spreading corruption on earth” (efsad-e fel arz), offences for which the death penalty is a possible verdict under the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The report contains the following chapters:
Civilians killed in street protests;
Protesters tortured and killed in detention centres;
Protesters died after release from detention centres;
Suspicious deaths during anti-government protests;
Executions for taking part in protests;
Killings and deaths in detention centres and prisons;
Killings of civilians;
Killings and assassinations of opposition forces;
Kolbars;
Femicide;
Workers;
Exploding landmines and ammunition;
Detentions and arrests;
Prison sentences.
https://kurdistanhumanrights.org/en/annual-report-mar-2022-mar-2023/
