By Irwin Cotler
Iran’s Supreme Court has now confirmed the death sentence of Iranian-born web programmer Saeed Malekpour, a Canadian permanent resident. Malekpour was convicted of “crimes against Islam” and “spreading corruption on Earth” — which have emerged as classic trumped-up charges in the Iranian pattern of the criminalization of innocence. For supposedly creating pornography websites in Iran, Malekpour is set to receive the death penalty. Continue reading
AZFamily News Channel
Reporting by Crystal Cruz
“We understand this puts people in a difficult situation where they must wait for many years for something that they might get right away, but we think the situation in keeping these cases on hold while we work through the exemption process is the best possible situation for the time being,” said Tim Counts with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
December 31, 2011
Happy New Year!
As we embark on the journey of another year, let us wish all of you the best on New Year’s Day and beyond.
We leave yet another year behind us and our people and fellow countrymen and women still live under tyranny and oppression.
As the calendar turns over to a fresh year, may the New Year 2012 bring blessings, peace and harmony to the world and freedom from despotism to our people and country.
With wishful blessings,
US Representation
Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan Continue reading
By Dennis Ross
Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2011
President Barack Obama, like President George W. Bush before him, has stated that it would be unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Recently, Mr. Obama has taken this a step further by declaring that he is determined to prevent the Iranians from acquiring the bomb.
Does that mean that the use of force against the Iranian nuclear program is inevitable? No, nor should it be. I don’t say this because I believe we can live with a nuclear-armed Iran; I do not. An Iran with nuclear weapons would confront the world with many dangers, including the very real danger that it will trigger a nuclear war in the Middle East. Continue reading
Pdki.org staff writer
November 30, 2011 – Several hundred Iranian militia students, protected by the regime security forces stormed and ransacked the British embassy and residence compounds on Tuesday in Tehran, apparently in response to new economic sanctions over the regime’s nuclear program.
The attack comes after the regime’s Islamic Assembly voted to expel the UK ambassador and reduce diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom following London’s support of recently upgraded Western sanctions on Tehran, The Associated Press reported. Continue reading
Danielle Mitterrand, the widow of France’s former Socialist President François Mitterrand, died early Tuesday at the age of 87. A former resistance heroine, she used her position as first lady to devote herself to many humanitarian causes.
Resistance heroine, humanitarian and widow of a president, Danielle Mitterrand, who died early Tuesday aged 87, was never content with the ornamental role of a traditional French first lady. Continue reading
In the course of its existence, the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) has conducted extensive research into gross human right violation in Iran compiling valuable documents such as Murder at Mykonos: Anatomy of a Political Assassination, No Safe Haven: Iran’s Global Assassination Campaign, Condemned by Law: Assassination of Political Dissidents Abroad, Covert Terror: Iran’s Parallel Intelligence Apparatus, among others, to better illustrate the conditions of human rights violations in Iran in particular the conditions of oppressed nationalities in Iran, including Kurds, who have become the prime victims of this regime’s brutal policy and campaign of extermination and deprivation. Continue reading
The deaths continue in the crackdown on protesters in Syria with another twenty-five people killed on Thursday, according to activists. Fourteen of them are said to be civilians.
There are claims that three of the people killed were defectors from the army who refused to fire live ammunition at the crowds. There are also reports that an eight year old girl was one of the casualties. Continue reading
On Wednesday, October 26, 2011 the Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Management will hold a joint hearing entitled “Iranian Terror Operations on American Soil.” The Subcommittees will meet at 10:00 a.m. in 311 Cannon House Office Building.
Chairman Meehan on the hearing:
“This hearing will examine the capability and intent of the Iranian government to conduct terrorist attacks on American soil. The complaint unsealed in New York on October 11th alleges that senior officials in the Iranian government ordered the assassination of the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States in Washington, DC. In my view, this represents the crossing of a ‘red line’ by the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism against the United States and Israel. We will hear from an expert panel of witnesses with long personal experiences fighting the many facets of Iran’s terrorist regime — as soldiers, CIA case officers and terror finance investigators. This week marks the 28th anniversary of Iran’s terrorist attack against the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed 241 servicemen. In light of Iran’s reckless provocation revealed in recent weeks, we must do everything we can to ensure that nothing like this ever happens in the U.S. Homeland.” Continue reading
A 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey’s north east city of Van on Sunday, October 23, 2011 with Its epicenter 35 km in north west of Van province, and shocks being felt as far as Orumieh and Duhok.
According to latest reports, the earthquake has caused massive destructions in several Kurdish cities in Turkey resulting in the death and injury of hundreds and the casualty tolls are even expected to be higher. Continue reading
To note from the video:
-People here say that aside from a small emergency team, they say they don’t even have the tools to do the job, let alone the backup they need.
-Let’s not waste it on the Kurds living here in Van, but 200 KM away the Turkish army is engaged in a military operation against Kurdish fighters the PKK.
-Where is the army they are saying to us!!! Continue reading
On the night of Sept. 17, 1992, at 10:45, two darkly clad men burst in on a private dinner at a Berlin restaurant and stood over a table around which eight of Iran’s leading opposition figures were seated. The taller of the two intruders shouted: “You sons of whores!”
Then he thrust his gloved hand into the sports bag that hung on his shoulder. In the dimly lit air, sparks of fire flashed at the intruder’s hip. Bullets, piercing the side of the bag, riddled the guests. After two rounds—26 bullets in all—the machine-gun barrage finally stopped.
The eldest of the eight guests at the table, Sadegh Sharafkandi, Iran’s most prominent Kurdish leader, was still in his chair, head slumped, blood tinting his white shirt. Another guest sat doubled over, breathing noisily, gasping for air, his face smashed into a mug of beer. The rest were strewn on the floor. Of the eight guests, four died that night at Berlin’s Mykonos restaurant. Continue reading
There is still much to learn about the Iranian-directed plot to blow up the Saudi ambassador in a Washington, D.C., restaurant. But if the Justice Department’s information is correct, the conspiracy confirms a lethal fact about Iran’s regime: It is becoming more dangerous, not less, as it ages.
Since the 1989 death of Iran’s revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Western observers have hunted for signs of the end of the revolution’s implacable hostility toward the United States. Signs have been abundant outside the ruling elite: Virtually the entire lay and much of the clerical intellectual class have damned theocracy as illegitimate, and college-educated youth (Iran has the best-educated public of any big Middle Eastern state) overwhelmingly threw themselves into the pro-democracy Green Movement that shook the regime in the summer of 2009. Continue reading
– dedicated to the life and works of martyr Mashaal Tammo
October 10, 2011
More than 50,000 mourners marched through the streets of Qamishli, a city in Syria’s Kurdish northeast, to mark the funeral of Mish’al Tammo, who was killed on Friday when masked gunmen burst into his flat.
Security forces opened fire on Tammo’s funeral procession on Saturday after it turned into an anti-regime rally, according to activists. At least five people died according to the Associated Press. Continue reading
FrontPage Magazine – The U.S. is calling on Syrian dictator Bashar Assad to step down and is increasingly persuaded that the uprising against his rule will be victorious. As the world wonders who will replace the regime, an Islamist-dominated group called the Syrian National Council is being embraced by Turkey and the Obama administration State Department. Genuine secular forces, meanwhile, are being left to the wayside as they struggle to save their country from both Assad and theMuslim Brotherhood.
The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood has stated, “We have a desire to coordinate the position of the opposition.” With support from the Turkish government and a naïve U.S. State Department, it can achieve this objective. On September 15, opposition activists formed the Syrian National Council in Istanbul, the latest in a long list of umbrella groups to be formed since the uprising began. Continue reading
20 Jan 2011 (Medya News) Following the release of the news, the Islamic Republic’s public execution of a political activist, the probability that the executed person is Hussein Khizri, the Kurdish political prisoner is certainly close.
5 days have lapsed since the news of the execution surfaced, still judicial officials yet to announce the identity of the executed person, something that the lawyer of Hussein Khizri believes to be unprecedented in the recent history of executions in Iran. Continue reading
By pdki.org staff writter
January 27, 2011 (pdki.org) Kurdish political prisoner Farhad Tarom, from the village of “Lavark” of the Dashtabel district of Oshnavieh city in West Azerbijan province in North-western Iran was executed on Wednesday, January 27, 2011 in the Orumieh central prison charged with association and membership in Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan. Continue reading
I am wholeheartedly delighted that this courageous Kurdish activist has been nominated for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. Today, as always, I feel proud to be Kurdish. I have always admired the dedication, persistence and bravery of this man who sacrificed his life and that of his family for that of his nation.
Kaboudvand and the Kurdish nation have long suffered, and a Nobel Peace Prize can only heal an inch of the miles long sufferings endured by Kaboudvand and his people.
“There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.” Nelson Mandela Continue reading
Video clips uploaded to the Internet are said to show crowds of protesters out in streets of the Iranian capital on the day the political opposition had called for a rally. The video clip above purportedly depicts crowds of students at a protest rally at Tehran’s Sharif University on Monday. Sources told Babylon & Beyond that the gathering at Sharif University started in the early afternoon and that protesters chanted anti-government slogans and Allah o Akbar–God is Great– before members of the Basij militia arrived at the scene to disperse the crowds. Continue reading
CNN’s Anderson Cooper: Brutality and Hypocrisy in Iran Continue reading
World leaders react to Iran uprising Continue reading
Protests spread in the Middle East Continue reading
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accuses the West and Israel of trying to create discord in the Mideast. Continue reading
Egypt’s uprising’s impact on the region with ex-CIA Director James Woolsey Continue reading
Thirty-two years later, Iran is still fighting for its independence. Can Egypt do better? CNN’s Sandra Endo reports. Continue reading
Witnesses say security agents on motorcycles are riding onto sidewalks to disperse opposition protests in Tehran, Iran. Continue reading
Slogans:
Death to Dictator
Zealous army, embrace the nation
Hashemi (Hashemi-Rafsanjani) have decency and leave the dictator Continue reading
A brief biography on the so called Prof. Marandi from Tehran University and an interview followed posted on PBS’s Tehran Bureau.
What is so upsetting about this Professor? is the fact that the regime has shunned all the credible international media from having presence in Iran while this so-called professor appears on all those same channels Iranian regime has shut its doors to.
In this interview he defends the existence of democracy in Mullah’s Iran by referring to the existence of hand-picked parliamentarians and government run newspapers who he claims criticise Ahmadinejad. To set the record straight: Ahamdinejad is a pawn and so was Khatami, Mousavi and Karoubi and countless others who at one point in time were regime officials, but now are either behind bars or face persecution. In clerical Iran, the red line are not hand-picked institutions, rather it is the behind-the-sense system, run by the revolutionary guards and Khamanieh that breaths on this sham institutions and individuals. Continue reading
The Statement of the Campaign for the Defence of Iranian Nations’ Political Prisoners
The freedom-loving people of Iran!
Organizations and community of human rights defenders!
For ages, Iran, our tyrannized homeland has been dodged in a prolonged narration of conflict between civility and barbarism, liberty and tyranny, justice and prejudice as a turbulent course of its history. Iran is a land blessed with variety of colours, cultures, beliefs, languages, religions, races and diverse people; hence, it has been a cradle of peaceful coexistence of nations with various cultures in the course of its long history. Recognizing the diversity of cultures and nations existing in today’s Iran, and revitalizing the essence of modern cultural and political pluralism in the heart of this multi-national homeland can be the nurturing ground for the spread of democracy in a region that the rampant reign of dictatorship and totalitarianism has stood against democracy and equality. Continue reading
BBC – Thousands of people are reported to have been killed and many others injured in a poison gas attack on a Kurdish city in northern Iraq.
Up to 20 aircraft, said to include Iraqi Migs and Mirages, were seen overhead at around 1100 local time in Halabja. Continue reading
بەهار و سەری ساڵ و نەورۆزی کوردەواریتان پیرۆز بێ
Newroz or Nûroj (Kurdish: نهورۆز/Newroz/Nûroj, also: Gulus Kurdish: گوڵوس) refers to the celebration of the traditional Iranian new year holiday of Newroz in Kurdish society. The festival of Nowruz is celebrated throughout the countries of the Middle East and Central Asia such as in Iran, Azerbaijan and Afghanistan. Newroz is also celebrated by some communities in Pakistan and Turkey. In Kurdish legend, the holiday celebrates the deliverance of the Kurds from a tyrant, and it is seen as another way of demonstrating support for the Kurdish cause. The celebration coincides with the spring equinox which falls mainly on 21 March and the festival is held usually between 18 and 24 March. The festival currently has an important place in the terms of Kurdish identity for the majority of Kurds, mostly in Turkey and Syria. Though celebrations vary, people generally gather together to welcome the coming of spring; people wear coloured clothes and dance together. To read the rest of this article visit Wikipedia
2711 Kurdish-English Calendar Courtesy of Kurdistan Newspaper (JPEG)
Also Newroz 2008 in Mahabad (Iranian Kurdistan), BBC photo
پهیامی نهورۆزیی سكرتێری گشتیی حیزبی دێموکراتی کوردستانی ئێران
CNN’s Hala Gorani explains though small the protests in Syria are significant because they are spreading. Continue reading
Right Step in the Right Direction…Hope to see Apple, Windows, Facebook and others following suit
——–
Google First Major Online Portal to Provide Search in Kurdish
Google Arabia announced earlier today the launch of local search portal for two new countries in Arabia, Iraq & Tunisia, through Google.iq & Google.tn. Continue reading
pdki.org staff writer
April 8, 2011 – Iraqi security forces in bulldozers and Humvees barreled into a camp that is home to an Iranian opposition group early Friday, sources reported.
The details of what happened were in dispute, with Iraqi security forces saying three people were killed after residents hurled stones at soldiers, and a camp spokesman saying at least 31 people were killed in an unprovoked attack intended to harass them into leaving, Washington Post reported. Continue reading
The Ahwazi Arab ‘Day of Rage’ proceeded under a complete media black-out and brutal state repression, leaving at least nine dead, scores injured and hundreds detained by security services.
During the demonstrations, which coincided with the sixth anniversary of the Ahwazi intifada, the Bassij used live rounds and shot indiscriminately at unarmed protesters. In Kut Abdullah district, which has long been the focus of Ahwazi Arab unrest, two women were killed – one shot dead and the other died from inhalation of tear gas – and 30 Ahwazis were hurt. In Malashoeh, more than 50 were injured and three were shot dead. Elsewhere in Ahwaz City, protests were reported in the districts of Siah, Zwiehe, Hamidiya, Aziziyah, Qadisiya and other districts. Protests were also reported in Abadan near the Iraqi border, but there are no reports as yet of killings or injuries. Hospitals were forced to close emergency admissions. Continue reading
Kurdish Human Rights Watch, Inc. (KHRW)
Leadership Council for Human Rights (LC4HR)
Cordially invite you to
Iran’s Ethno-Religious Minorities Under Siege
on
Monday May 23rd 2011
12:00 – 1:00 PM
at
Rayburn House Office Building
Room B-340
Hosted by
Kathryn Cameron Porter, the Founder and President of LC4HR
Dr. Pary Karadaghi, President, KHRW
Featuring
Mustafa Hijri, the General Secretary of Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI)
Dr. Leila Milani, the co-founder and Executive Director of Iran Rooyan
Dr. Karim Abdian, the Representative of Congress of Nationalities for Federal Iran in the US
Carol Prunhuber, Prunhuber journalist and the author of “The Passion and Death of Rahman the Kurd”
Sam Yebri, attorney, civic activist and the President and Co-founder of 30 Years After
Dr. M. Hossein Bor, Attorney, Baluch political and human right activist
To RSVP, please call KHRW at 703-385-3806
or RSVP e-mail to carol@khrw.org, or kurds@khrw.org
Light lunch will be served.
May 25, 2011 (AP) OROUMIEH LAKE, Iran — From a hillside, Kamal Saadat looked forlornly at hundreds of potential customers, knowing he could not take them for trips in his boat to enjoy a spring weekend on picturesque Oroumieh Lake, the third largest saltwater lake on earth.
“Look, the boat is stuck… It cannot move anymore,” said Saadat, gesturing to where it lay encased by solidifying salt and lamenting that he could not understand why the lake was fading away.
The long popular lake, home to migrating flamingos, pelicans and gulls, has shrunken by 60 percent and could disappear entirely in just a few years, experts say drained by drought, misguided irrigation policies, development and the damming of rivers that feed it. Continue reading
May 23, 2011
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me begin by thanking all those who made this extraordinary gathering possible.
Fundamental human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran are being violated in a systematic way. These violations are rooted in the regime’s ideological foundation: stoning, amputation, execution of dissidents and many other cruel and inhumane punishments are customary practice in Iran. For more than three decades, these brutal acts have been carried out in the country. The whole world has witnessed this. I know you are also aware of this. Continue reading
by pdki.org staff writter
May 30, 2011 (pdki.org) Representatives and leaders of Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities were invited for a briefing symposium on Capitol Hill to discuss the situation of their communities this past Monday.
The event was hosted by two human rights organization (Leadership Council for Human Rights and Kurdish Human Rights Watch) and the president of the host organizations, Kathryn Cameron Porter and Dr. Pary Gharadaghi moderated the one and half hour session. Continue reading
A very remarkable testimony by Dr Satloff on the situation in Syria as it relates to Iran and an urgently needed US policy…Could not have expressed it any better…
—
Featuring Robert Satloff
June 23, 2011
U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs
Four months ago, I had the privilege of testifying to this committee when the hope and optimism of the potential for democratic change in the region was at its height. Now that we have seen what reactionary forces in the region can do in an effort to snuff out the will of the people, using the most repressive and inhuman tactics, I come before you today with the region in a more sober and somber mood. However, it is important to note that we are still witnessing the early days of the vast tectonic shift that is underway in the Middle East. While we need to be vigilant about who we embrace in the march of change sweeping the region and be appropriately cautious to prevent new authoritarians from reaping the benefit from the fall of the old ones, we should not be so frightened of the possibility of change that we fail to see the enormous opportunities that change can bring. Continue reading
By Jim Karygiannis, Canada MP
Published June 22, 2011 in Embassy, Canada’s Foreign Policy Newspaper
Jim Karygiannis meeting with Mayor of Varto and Inan Haklari Human Rights Association bases out of Ankara
The Turkish government cannot afford to continue to ignore and belittle the plight of the Kurdish people living within its borders.
For decades, the Kurdish people have lived under a government that has repressed cultural expression and freedom of speech and violated human rights. I believe the international community should demonstrate a willingness to try and address this serious situation. Continue reading
The regime of Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the most terrorist-state that we have witnessed in our times. Much of the free world, Europe and US included, recognizes the extent of terrorism in Iranian regime’s policy and doctrine; however they only go as far as making reference to Iranian regime sponsorship of terrorism outside Iran in particular the extremist groups in the Middle East, Hezbollah and Hamas, but they fail to… recognize and talk about the domestic victims of terrorism or those freedom-loving Iranians who have been victims of such policy.Dr. Abdul-Rahman Ghassemlou, then the Secretary General of Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan was one of those great Kurdish-Iranian leaders who fell victim to this policy of exterminating dissidents through terror. He was gunned down in the heart of Europe in 1989 in Vienna by the terrorist-diplomats of the Islamic regime in Iran. Continue reading
Pdki.org staff writer
July 12, 2011 (pdki.org) The authorities in Iran have electronically jammed the Kurdish language television TISHK TV over its coverage of the planned mass strike for July 13, 2011 in the Kurdish areas of Iran.
The general strike was called by Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, a party whose leader was assassinated 22 years ago by the mercenaries of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Vienna, Austria.
The interference began on Tuesday morning after TISHK TV showed extensive rolling news coverage and programs from the preparations for the mass strike.
The station which broadcasts from Paris into Iran and other Kurdish areas in the Middle East on Hot Bird 6, owned by Eutelsat primarily in Kurdish and Persian with weekly programming in Arabic and Baluchi. Continue reading
Marc Kravetz
(Translated from Libération, August 7, 1989)
Abdel Rahman Ghassemlou, murdered in Vienna on July 13th 1989, was in every way an exceptional man, both as leader of one of the oldest and most deeply rooted national liberation movements and in his personal magnetism – his international influence, his rare if not unique ability to express the traditions and the struggle of a thousand-year-old people in terms of the values of the late 20th century: freedom, democracy, internationalism. But he was little known to the public, and many will have learned simultaneously of his existence and of his death.
Ghassemlou was not a man of shadows, nor surrounded by mystery. The Secretary General of the Democratic Party of Kurdistan of Iran, war leader when necessary but political leader above all, he saw himself as a man of contact and dialogue. He was a passionate and tireless ambassador for this cause, who travelled all over the world to make it better known. But he was happiest sharing mud hut with his peshmergas at the bottom of some remote valley on the Iran-Iraq border, where he was constantly on the move, taking his library with him. Continue reading
It is true that the Islamic regime does not show any respect to the decisions taken by the international community, but it does not mean that these strong voices of protest are totally ineffective on the regimes behavior. Regardless, this decision remains a strong source of encouragement for the Iranian people and the regimes’ opposition.
Interview with Mr. Hasan Sharafi, spokesman and deputy general secretary of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan Continue reading
President Ahmadinejad is the leader of a criminal regime that flouts international law by pursuing an illegal nuclear weapons program, sponsoring terrorism, and abusing its own citizens. We strongly believe that no American-based venue should host this man. We are calling on you and all other New York-area venues to help isolate and condemn the Iranian regime by refusing to host President Ahmadinejad and his cohorts… Ambassador Mark D. Wallace, Continue reading
Near East: Axis of Abuse: U.S. Human Rights Policy toward Iran and Syria: Part 1
Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:16:41 -0500
Ambassador Posner:
It is no coincidence both Iran and Syria have responded to their citizens with similar contempt and brutal tactics. As the latter designation shows, we know that the Syrians have employed Iranian help in curbing dissent. This has exposed a strident hypocrisy on the part of the Iranian regime, which has tried unsuccessfully to take credit for democratic movements in Egypt and elsewhere and laud protesters when it suited its strategic interests, but has materially helped the Syrian government crush its own protestors in order to preserve their ally. The Iranian regime’s false narrative is further exposed even as the regime continues to smother its own domestic opposition.. Nevertheless, hundreds of brave Iranian citizens continue to engage in the most basic but critical of human rights work, documenting and reporting on abuses, with the hope that one day Iranian government officials will be held accountable for crimes they have committed against their fellow citizens. Continue reading
Washington Post:
The Obama administration said Thursday that Iran is helping al-Qaeda funnel cash and recruits into Pakistan for its international operations, the most serious U.S. allegation to date of Iranian aid to the terrorist group. Full Story
—
Patrick Clawson’s chapter “Analysis of Iran-al-Qaeda ‘Secret Deal.’”
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/html/pdf/Clawson-IranPrimer-20110728.pdf
by HAMID FAROKHNIA in Tehran
24 Jul 2011 03:35
‘Federalism is not a recipe for disintegration,’ declares DPIK chief Mostafa Hejri.
As one of the oldest Kurdish political parties in the Middle East, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (DPIK, also known as PDKI, KDPI, and PDK-I) has experienced challenges of the sort that have crushed much larger political entities. Born in the throes of the superpowers’ Cold War rivalry after World War II, it was able to establish an indigenous Kurdish government — known as the Mahabad Republic — for a brief period in the northwest corner of Iran. While the party became a model for Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (its founder, Mustafa Barzani, pictured on homepage, was defense minister in the Mahabad Republic) and several other successful offshoots, with the violent defeat of its forces and ensuing mass reprisals against its followers in 1946, the DPIK led a largely underground existence until the 1979 Revolution. Then, within days of the fall of monarchy, the party was able to quickly assert control over large swaths of Iranian Kurdistan. Most observers credited the memories of the Mahabad Republic for the party’s widespread popularity in the region. Continue reading
The Iranian regime is one of the few remaining allies of the embattled Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad. For years, the United States has tried to sever the ties between the two countries, but the current crisis has only pushed them closer together.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has made it clear that Tehran sees the uprising in Syria as a U.S. ploy: “In Syria, the hand of America and Israel is evident,” he said on June 30. Meanwhile, he affirmed Iran’s support for Assad, noting, “Wherever a movement is Islamic, populist, and anti-American, we support it.” Continue reading
Sharif Behruz for Medya News
August 27, 2011 – In protest to diversion of many rivers that feed one of the largest salty lake in the world, Lake Orumieh in north western Iran residents of the city of Orumieh poured to the streets (see video) of the city despite the heavy presence of security and anti-riot forces on Saturday afternoon.
According to Iranian Kurdistan’s official news agency, Kurdistan Press Agency, Kurdpa, Saturday afternoon’s protesters reached seven thousands in the streets of Orumieh. Continue reading
This past July 13 marked the 22nd anniversary of Dr. A. R. Ghassemlou and his aides; Human Rights Activists Association at York University and The Greater Toronto Kurdish House hosted an event to discuss the various dimensions of Iranian regime’s state terrorism as related to Dr. Ghassemlou and other victims’ of Iranian state terrorism.
The event was held on July 17, 2011 at the North York Civic Centre. The memorial started with a moment of silence and then a brief biography of Dr. Ghassmlou and opening remarks by Sarah Akrami the President of Human Rights Activists Association at York University followed by messages from Human Rights Activists Association at York University, the Greater Toronto Kurdish House and Amnesty International Canada.
Video: Introductory and opening remarks Continue reading
Toronto, July 18, 2011
July 13, is a very heartfelt and meaningful day for the Kurdish nation, a day in which the life of a much-loved and respected Kurdish leader was extinguished. We gather each year to remember Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and his colleagues. This day commemorates the passing of a great light from this world. Why do we take the time to recall a past, fallen hero?
First and foremost, Ghassemlou was a man of very high principles and uncommonly in the world of politics, he actually lived those principles. His ideas were so far ahead of his time that even within his party, he was greatly misunderstood. Ghassemlou came to his people with the vastness of the ocean and was often met with the limitations of a closed-in world. Continue reading
July 17, 2011
Terror and Terrorists: Dr. Ghassemlou’s Murder
On July 14, 1989 the French people celebrated the bicentennial of the French Revolution. As the French were celebrating their revolution two centuries later, the people in Kurdistan and Iran were preparing for the most tragic event in their history. July 13, 1989 is an appalling date for the people of Iran and Kurdistan; Dr. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou who was preparing to celebrate the ideals of the French Revolution was killed in Vienna, Austria along with his aides on the supposed negotiation table with the mercenaries of the Islamist regime in Iran who happened to hijack his Revolution in Iran a decade earlier.
The murder of this exceptional Kurdish-Iranian opposition leader, in which the regime’s current President, a former Guard commander, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s name has been dragged, is still shrouded in mystery more than two decades on; justice aside, tragically, the world community is still struggling to define the acts that Dr. Ghassemlou and countless other brave Iranian have fell victim to, namely terror, terrorist and terrorism. Continue reading
By: Soraya Fallah
Co-researcher: Cklara Moradian
Dr. Ghaseloo’s Assassination: A Case for Taking International Legal Action
Ladies and gentlemen, first and foremost I would like to thank you for holding a conference to pay respect to the memory of prominent leader Dr. Abdol Rahman Ghassemlou who was brutally assassinated by the Iranian agents in Austria.
Dr. Ghassemlou was assassinated before he could achieve his political goals. He believed in non-violence, human rights, and the advancement of all oppressed nations in Iran.
His untimely absence and subsequent leadership vacuum was followed by a brutal campaign by the Iranian government. History has shown that his murder took the Kurdish people back many steps. The democratic process and the goal of autonomy also fell back. Continue reading
New York, NY – Today, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) called on its supporters to contact the Warwick New York Hotel concerning its decision to host Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during the United Nations General Assembly next week.
UANI members are encouraged to call the Warwick at (212) 247-2700, or write them through www.UANI.com, and make their voices heard. UANI is also calling for a boycott of all Warwick International Hotels worldwide, including their U.S. hotels in Denver, Seattle, Dallas and San Francisco. Read More Continue reading
The New York Times Book Review
On the night of Sept. 17, 1992, two armed men entered the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin and shot dead a visiting Kurdish leader of the Iranian opposition, his two aides and an exiled dissident. The visiting dignitary, Sadegh Sharafkandi, was the chairman of Iran’s Democratic Party of Kurdistan and had come to Berlin to address the International Congress of the Social Democratic Party. The dinner at Mykonos, attended by members of the exiled Iranian community, was to honor his visit. It had been arranged at a moment of optimism for many of the exiles, when the president of Iran, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was calling on them to return home, promising moderation and reconciliation. Continue reading
Simon Tisdall
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 September 2011 13.13 BST
Turkey’s noisy championing of Palestinian rights, a source of growing friction with the US and Israel, jars uncomfortably with Ankara’s treatment of its own disadvantaged and stateless minority – the Kurds. Bomb attacks this week in Ankara, blamed on Kurdish PKK militants, highlight the deteriorating internal security situation and stoke fears that Turkey’s troubles could spill over into Syria and Iraq, further aggravating Arab spring instability.
Apparently oblivious to possible double standards, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, has been in voluble form of late. His tour last week of Egypt, Libya and Tunisia played upon a common theme – Turkey’s support for the justified aspirations of oppressed peoples everywhere. Erdogan’s long-running feud with Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians reached new heights when he warned the Turkish navy might escort future relief flotillas to Gaza. Continue reading
There is a lot that could be said about this staged and planned episode; however this Editorial (below) lays out the ordeal of these three hikers in Iran eloquently.
Congratulations on your release, I am sure your families will be thrilled to have you home after two years of captivity in the hands of this notorious regime holding the people of Iran hostage for more than three decades.
Kurdpa.com: The Dehloran Deputy in Iran’s Islamic Assembly stated: After more than two decades of the end of the Iran-Iraq war, we witness civilian death on daily basis due to land mines.
Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency quoting Ali Ezati reported: the residents of Ilam province, in particular the city of Dehloran step on mines regularly resulting in their death or serious injuries.
Ilam province as part of the Kurdish areas of Iran is situated in Western Iran with more than 430 kilometres of common borders with Iraq and has more than 1,700,000 thousands hectares of land still under land mines. Continue reading
The 8 months old uprising in Syria is not only Bashar Assad’s nightmare, but is also the nightmare of his most interested ally: Iran. Indeed, since the beginning of the popular dissent, Iran has been very silent about the events in Syria.
Syrian opposition sources had said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has sent scores of snipers to help in Assad’s crackdown of the revolt. They said the snipers were ordered to target protest organizers as well as those filming the demonstrations. Continue reading
A son unpicks the story of his father’s life as a Kurdish fighter as he confronts him about being sent away as a child.
Zanyar is a magazine publisher based in Sweden. He is about to become a father but before his baby is born he needs to confront his own father, Taher, about why he sent Zanyar to Europe on his own when he was just five years old. At the time, Taher was fighting with the Kurdish rebel forces in Kurdistan.
In 2009, some 300,000 refugees crossed the borders into Europe; a third of these were unaccompanied children from countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, Taher drives a taxi on the roads of Stockholm. He does not talk about his past as a Kurdish fighter or the sacrifices he has made. But Zanyar slowly unpicks his story. Continue reading
with
Roya Hakakian
Poet, journalist, and writer
Focusing on the 1992 assassinations of the Kurdish leaders in Berlin, Hakakian will discuss her book, Assassins of the Turquoise Palace, which provides the full scope of the historic case that has remained surprisingly unknown to draw the contemporary implications and significant lessons which illuminate Iran and its surrounding predicament today.
To RSVP: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/justice-iranian-style-tehrans-extrajudicial-assassinations
The 66th Anniversary of Kurdistan Republic of 1946 in the National Capital Region of US, London, Ontario Canada and Vancouver, BC Canada
رێوەرەسمەکانی ٦٦ەمین ساڵڤەگەری دامەزرانی کۆماری کوردستان لە شارەکانی دەڤەری واشنگتۆن ئەمریکا، لەندەن ئونتاریو کانەدا و ڤەنکوڤێر کانەدا
USA Eastern Canada Western Canada
