Nadene Goldfoot
On 16 September 2022, a 22-year-old Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini , died in a hospital in Tehran, Iran, under suspicious circumstances. She was arrested, and taken away by Iran's religious morality police for wearing her head covering a little too far back, exposing some of her hair. All this happened in Tehran for "improperly" wearing her hijab. She was still in police custody when she died.
Iran introduced a mandatory dress code for women, in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic standards, a short time after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. On 7 March, less than a month after the revolution, Khomeini decreed the hijab (Islamic headscarf) to be mandatory for all women in their workplace, and decreed that women would no longer be allowed to enter the workplace or any government office unveiled, which he termed as "naked".
Violence and harassment against women not wearing the hijab in accordance with Iranian government standards had become common after the revolution, whether by law enforcement personnel or pro-regime vigilantes. From 1980, women could not enter government or public buildings or attend their workplace without hijab. In 1983, mandatory hijab in public was introduced in the penal code, stating that "women who appear in public without religious hijab will be sentenced to whipping up to 74 lashes". But in practice a number of women, such as Saba Kord Afshari and Yasaman Aryani, were sentenced to heavy prison terms.
In the last decade, clothing in Iranian society underwent significant changes, and young women in particular tend to be more liberal about hijab rules, prompting the Guidance Patrol, Iran's morality police, to launch intermittent campaigns to verbally admonish or violently arrest and "re-educate" women they considered to be wearing the hijab incorrectly.
Under routine circumstances, the detainees are brought to a center where they are re-instructed in the dress regulations for hours, before being made to sign a pledge to uphold said regulations, and then being allowed to leave with their family.
"What happened this time? Was it because she was a Kurd?
The Iranian government insisted that Amini died from a heart attack, but reports indicate she died from a skull fracture due to heavy blows to the head. People believe she was beaten into a coma.
People from different layers of the society across Iran have joined protests since Amini, an Iranian Kurd, died after being detained in Tehran on Sept. 13 for "inappropriate attire".
The death of a 17-year-old girl since the start of the protests has become another focal point of protester anger, with activists on Twitter saying Nika Shakarami was killed in Tehran while demonstrating over Amini's death. State media said on Wednesday a judicial case had been opened into Shakarami's death, citing officials claiming it had nothing to do with the unrest, and that she had fallen off a roof and her body contained no bullet wounds.
Relatives of a girl who died during protests in Iran have been forced into making false statements, a source close to the family has told BBC Persian.
Nika Shakarami, 16, went missing in Tehran on 20 September after telling a friend she was being chased by police. On Wednesday night, a state TV report showed her aunt, Atash, saying: "Nika was killed falling from a building." Her uncle was also seen on TV speaking against the unrest, as someone seems to whisper to him: "Say it, you scumbag!"
The source told BBC Persian that these were both "forced confessions" that came "after intense interrogations and being threatened that other family members would be killed". Atash and Nika's uncle, Mohsen, were detained by authorities after Atash posted messages online about her niece's death and spoke to the media. The televised statements were recorded before they were released, according to the source.
Kurds in Iran constitute a large minority in the country with a population of around 9 and 10 million people. Iran is the 6th most populated Muslim majority country in the world with 76, 923,300 with Indonesia being the first with 228,582,000., and this was back in 2011.
Their original home was in Kurdistan, a mountainous region now divided among Turkey, Iran and Iraq. The campaign of Iraqi government against Kurds in 1988 was called Anfal ("Spoils of War") The Anfal attacks led to destruction of two thousand villages and death of between 50 and 100,000 Kurds. After the Kurdish uprising in 1991 (Kurdish: Raperîn) led by the PUK and KDP, Iraqi troops recaptured the Kurdish areas and hundreds of thousand of Kurds fled to the borders.
Jews had gone into Kurdistan as early as the time of Ezra(5th century BCE) led Jews of Babylon back to Jerusalem. Kurdish Jews speak a language close to that of the Babylonian Talmud. A Jewish community living in Kurdistan toward the end of the 19th century numbered from 12,,000 to 18,000. This could be why the DNA of Kurds is the closest to the Jews. After 1948, the great majority of Kurdish Jews, from all areas, immigrated to Israel and settled in or near Jerusalem.
Kurds have been taking on ISIS in battle and winning. The region’s Kurds are emerging as important players. Kurdish groups, from the peshmerga of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), to the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, and even Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party, have been on the front lines in the fight against ISIS. Kurds are also playing an important role in sheltering refugees and protecting other minorities in the region.
Resource:
https://www.reuters.com/world/iran-summons-british-envoy-alleging-uk-meddling-unrest-2022-10-05/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Mahsa_Amini#:~:text=On%2016%20September%202022%2C%20a,%2C%20Iran%2C%20under%20suspicious%20circumstances.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/06/iran-protests-nika-shakarami-mahsa/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurds_in_Iran
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Kurds#:~:text=The%20Anfal%20attacks%20led%20to,Kurds%20fled%20to%20the%20borders.
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