contents
Tehran is trying to portray the ongoing protests as an ethnic conflict – which is by no means the case.
The bases of retreat for the Iranian Kurdish parties are in the Iraqi Kurdish region. Tehran repeatedly fired at them with rockets.
Nevertheless, the Kurdish parties in exile have so far been smart enough not to bring the armed struggle back home, says Loqman Radpey. The Iranian Kurd lives in exile in Scotland. Radpey is an expert on international law for Kurdish self-determination and follows developments from the University of Edinburgh.
Radpey is convinced that a return to military combat would be fatal for the Kurdish parties. The Kurds don’t stand a chance against the Iranian regime’s heavy weapons.
Tehran blames separatists
An armed escalation would suit the Iranian regime’s propaganda. “It would support the main argument of the regime in Tehran, according to which armed separatists, guided by hostile countries abroad, are out to dismantle the Iranian state into its individual ethnic components,” says Radbey.
But that is not what Iran is about, stressed the UN’s special rapporteur on Iran, Javaid Rehman, at the Human Rights Council in Geneva last week.
An unprecedented wave of protests followed the death of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini through violence by the so-called morality police in Iran. “Fathers, sons and brothers joined the women and girls under the slogan ‘Woman, life, freedom’ on,” said Rehman.
Across all walks of life, protesters have overcome their fears to fight for a life of respect and dignity in a country where singing, dancing and showing your hair doesn’t lead to whipping, jail or death.
How big is the solidarity?
The Kurd Radpey also believes he has seen a new dynamic in the protest. For the first time ever, this state propaganda about separatism is no longer effective. Kurds felt they were part of a larger movement in their fight against discrimination.
But Radpey wonders whether the solidarity in the Persian heartland is great enough to seriously distress the regime. The call for a general strike last week was followed almost exclusively in the Kurdish region of Iran.
A mobilization of the masses, as has been shown in the Kurdish areas, can only be seen in the area of the Baloch minority in south-eastern Iran.
What should people do against it, with their bare hands against the concentrated power of the state?
The UN reporter also confirms that Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities paid the highest price. Dozens of people have been killed by security forces bullets in just the past few days. Most in the Kurdish region, says Rehman.
How is it going now?
Radpey in Scotland says the Tehran regime is fighting for its existence. It will do everything possible to secure this. “What are people supposed to do about it, with their bare hands against the concentrated state power?” the Kurdish intellectual asks himself.
Meanwhile, Iranian revolutionary leader Ali Khamenei praised the security forces. They risked their lives to protect the Iranian people from rioters and separatists. He said it as if the Islamic Republic were now going back to business as usual.
But there will be no going back to the time before the protest, Radpey is convinced of that in Scotland. But where the future will lead, he dares not predict.