Demo remembering Iranian invasion of Kurdistan

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice Tuesday August 18, 2009 17:31 by Botan

PRESS RELEASE

The Kurdish Student Union in Ireland has organised a protest outside of Iranian embassy on Thursday 20the August at 1 o’clock to remember 1979 invasion of Kurdistan by the Iranian regime.

During the Islamic revolution in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini the founding father of the Islamic Republic, openly proclaimed a wholly war “Jihad” against “the greatest infidels”. Khomeini ordered the Iranian army and the air force to attack Kurdistan to clear it off from the “mischievous of the earth.”. The full scale war against the Kurdish nation was staged and it has continued up to day. It has caused destructions and unbearable sufferings for the Kurdish people. The Kurdish nation is the only stateless nation that throughout the modern history of the Middle East has been subjected to campaigns of ethnic cleansing because of its claim to self-rule.

The Kurdish people are still repressed today by the Iranian current regime. Kurdish journalists are subject to censorship and Kurdish youth to gradual assimilation. It is difficult for the ethnic Kurds to hold important government positions. The list of things banned is endless. Even Kurdish internet sites are blocked by Iranian servers.

Resolving the Kurdish issue is of strategic importance for the prospects of democracy and stability in the future of the Middle East. Without resolving the Kurdish issue, there will not be peace and harmony in this destabilised region. The people of Kurdistan deserve fair settlement which allows them to live together on the basis of freedom and equality. The Kurds should enjoy their full range of human rights.

Today, after three decades, thousands of Kurdish activists have been imprisoned. Tortures and executions are widespread in the Iranian prisons. Right now more than 13 Kurdish human right activists are waiting for their execution. The Kurds have been denied with their most basic political rights. They are not even allowed to register their babies with Kurdish names. Women, half of the population, are oppressed as a gender. They are forced to cover themselves with the Islamic veil and are treated as worth half a man.

But despite the fact that the Kurdish nation has been subjected to intense campaigns of atrocities, massacres and ethnocide in the past 80 years, it is amazing that how the Kurds managed to survive. Now the Kurdish people organised themselves all over Kurdistan in the form of PKK and PJAK. PKK and PJAK have become an reality and inspired a new hope to the Kurdish community in and outside of Kurdistan. The most striking aspect of their agenda is their call for the emancipation of women from Islamic law and Middle Eastern cultural norms.

Watch this link to see a snapshop of what happened after the invasion of Kurdistan.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-i....html

Spokesman, Kurdo Abeid; 0871209024