On September 13, 2022, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Jina (Mahsa) Amini, from the city of Saqez, was beaten to death by the Iranian moral police in Tehran. She was accused of not wearing the hijab properly. Unfortunately, the injuries she received resulted in her death during her short detention at the headquarters of the moral police in Tehran.
She died three days later in a coma. The tragic death of this innocent Kurdish girl triggered a wave of riots and demonstrations in Eastern Kurdistan and throughout Iran.
In the inhumane system of the Islamic Republic, Kurdish women and children find themselves at the crossroads.
Girls are at the crossroads of ethnic and gender inequalities and are extremely oppressed. The country’s retrograde laws, which allow the state to interfere in a person’s most private affairs, including their clothing, have enabled the regime’s repressive forces to commit crimes against women.
In response to the legitimate demands of the people, the regime sends its repressive forces to the streets to use deadly force and even live ammunition.
The Iranian Islamic regime does not tolerate peaceful protests. At the time of writing this letter (September 22, 2022), hundreds of people have been killed in different cities in Eastern Kurdistan, at least 20 civilians have been killed and hundreds more have been seriously injured by direct fire.
Detailed information on the number of people killed and wounded will be made available in our future letters.
According to preliminary information from Eastern Kurdistan, the Iranian regime has cut off the internet in many cities and filtered several social media applications in order to control the online space and prevent news about the protests and violence against unarmed citizens from reaching the world.
We call on the international community, government authorities, NGOs and human rights defenders to raise their voices in support of the Kurds of Eastern Kurdistan.
The oppressive silence of the international society towards the situation of Kurds in Iraq must be broken.
The international community must break the silence surrounding the plight of the Kurds in Iran and should hold the Iranian regime accountable for its crimes against its own citizens.
The international community must absolutely recognize that the path to an accountable regime in Tehran is through the removal of ethnic and gender inequalities.
Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan
Foreign Relations Office
