Statement of the Secretariat
Kurdistan Human Rights Organization
Two years ago, on Shahrivar 25, 1401 [September 16, 2022], following the death of Zhina Mahsa Amini in the detention center of the morality police in Tehran, a nationwide uprising with the slogan "Jin, Jiyan, Azadi" [Woman, Life, Freedom] began from the Aichi Cemetery in Saqqez and, in the following days and weeks, encompassed and swept through all the cities of Kurdistan and most regions and cities of Iran.
However, this uprising and movement, unfortunately, took on a bloody form due to the severe crackdown by state forces. Over the course of months of continued protests, more than five hundred street protesters in Kurdistan [Kurdish provinces], Baluchestan, Gilan, Mazandaran, Karaj, and other regions were killed, and thousands more were wounded or suffered eye and physical injuries. Furthermore, more than 20,000 people were arrested and imprisoned, dozens were executed, and hundreds received heavy prison sentences.
In this regard, and in early August of the current year, the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights wrote in a detailed report that during the Zhina uprising and the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, ethnic and religious minorities in Iran—especially the two Kurdish and Baluch ethnicities—were disproportionately affected by the government's crackdown against protesters, which is the direct result of decades-long, longstanding discrimination that must end immediately.
Additionally, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, on August 27, presented a separate report on the widespread violations of the rights of ethnic and religious minorities in Iran. It reported on the increase in judicial and criminal cases against ethnic and religious activists and widespread human rights violations in the areas inhabited by ethnic and national minorities, especially the two Kurdish and Baluch ethnicities in Kurdistan and Baluchestan, and also demanded:
access for ethnic defendants to a fair judicial process, impartial investigations regarding allegations of human rights violations by state agents of the Iranian government during the protests, payment of reparations to victims, revision of vague criminal laws that carry the death penalty, and the abolition and termination of executions.
In recent days, and on the eve of the anniversary of Zhina's death and the Zhin, Jiyan, Azadi uprising, all civil and human rights institutions and organizations of Kurdistan, while honoring the memory of the victim Zhina and other victims of the Jin, Jiyan, Azadi uprising, have called for a general and nationwide protest strike.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Organization, while honoring the memory of the victim Zhina Mahsa Amini and all the victims of the Jin, Jiyan, Azadi uprising and movement, emphasizes
the fulfillment of the demands put forward by the UN Human Rights Commission's Fact-Finding Committee, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the human rights institutions and organizations of Kurdistan.
Date: Saturday, Shahrivar 24, corresponding to September 14, 2024
