Kurdish protest in Mahabad: A call for freedom

After the repression of local public's demonstrations in the summer of 2009 the streets of Mahabad, one of the biggest cities of Kurdistan in West Iran, are burning. Residents of the city set the hotel TARA on fire after a 25-year-old employee of the hotel, Farinaz Khosravani, was sexually assaulted by an agent of the Regime and took her own life by jumping out of the hotel´s fourth floor. It is well known that members of the Iranian Intelligence Agency are residing in that part of the hotel and sexually assaulting or raping staff members on a regular basis.

Because of Khosravani´s cruel death which is less of a suicide than a murder, residents of Mahabad are protesting against the inhuman and misogynist politics of the religious apparatus of repression in Iran.

According to recent reports security forces of the regime have violated more than 50 people and arrested at least 30. According to some reports two people were killed.

Protestors have called the population of Mahabad and other cities of Kurdistan for demonstrations to fight against the brutality of the police and the Basijies. The Mullah regime therefore has already stationed a big number of mercenaries and secret service agents from the cities of Orumiyeh and Miandoab in and around Mahabad in order to prevent further movement of the protests over the city.

While in Mahabad a military state of emergency is prevailing and teachers throughout the country are taking to the streets to protest against the unbearable living situations of their families under the corrupt Iranian educational system, while opponents of the regime are being persecuted and murdered and the popular human´s and women´s rights activist Narges Mohammadi has been arbitrarily arrested, the Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh is visiting Berlin at the invitation of German foreign minister Walter Steinmeier.

Zanganeh´s oil ministry and its subsidiary companies are still to be found on the sanctions lists of the EU and the U.S. The former revolutionary guard Zanganeh was previously received by chancellor Angela Merkel´s deputy, Sigmar Gabriel. It´s a scandal that during their meetings neither Steinmeier nor Gabriel have protested publicly against human rights violations in Iran.

Just that week eleven people were executed, among them Ali Yazdi and Zaher Malazehi in the jail of Karaj. Before Farinaz Khosravani´s funeral, her family has been warned by the regime not to speak to foreign press otherwise they would have to bear the consequences. The demonstrators' slogan was „We are all Farinaz!“ This is a call for freedom for all people in Iran!

Courtesy: JungleWorld, Thomas Osten-Sacken, Translation: Nurcan Özdemir