We are expressing our support for the legitimate rights of the Kurdish nation in Turkish Kurdistan and for this activity. We are also asking the Turkish government to stop ignoring the demands of the political prisoners who are on hunger strike. We also ask the international community and human rights organizations to take a clear position on this issue and fulfil their human obligations.

During the current circumstances we believe that it is well founded that all concerned civil society activist helps to solve the political problems they face as a nation by peaceful and democratic means.

There is no doubt that taking advantage of an open political situation is the most suitable solution in regard to attaining the legitimate rights of the Kurdish people in all parts of Kurdistan.

Fifth of November 2012
Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan
Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan

August 22, 2012

Abdullah Mohtadi (left), General Secretary of Komala and Mustafa Hijri the General Secretary of PDKI.

In a joint statement, the signing of a memorandum of agreement between Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan was announced.

Joint statement from Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan

Following talks and meetings between Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan to discuss and analyze important regional matters related to Iran in general and Kurdistan in particular, and also pursuing to further discussions to draft a Memorandum of Agreement for cooperation and coordination between the two sides that was being worked on by the working groups on each side, the two sides’ delegations headed by Abdullah Mohtadi, General Secretary of Komala and Mustafa Hijri the General Secretary of PDKI met at the PDKI headquarters on Tuesday August 21, 2012.

During the talks the situation of Iran, the region and Kurdistan were discussed; the previous talks on the draft Memorandum of Agreement were continued and finally entered into by Mustafa Hijri and Abdullah Mohtadi.

The two sides also hoped that the content of Memorandum of Agreement would lay the foundation for broader cooperation between the political forces of Iranian Kurdistan.

Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan
Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan

August 22, 2012

August 14, 2012

Two powerful earthquakes hit north-western Iran just minutes apart on Saturday killing hundreds of people and injuring thousands.

Officials said panicked residents fled into the streets as the powerful 6.2-magnitude quake hit at 4.53 p.m. local time. A second tremor, measuring 6.3 on the scale was reported 11 minutes later according to measurements taken by the US Geological Survey.

The quake, which hit near the city of Tabriz, home to 1.5 million people, managed to escape relatively unscathed except for a few obvious cracks in buildings, said officials at Tehran University’s Seismological Center.

The relatively strong quake also reached the city of Orumieh and its suburbs, damaging building, Kurdpa reporters have confirmed.

The United States on Sunday offered help and condolences to the people of Iran and in a statement issued on Sunday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said “The American people send the Iranian people our deepest condolences for the loss of life in the tragic earthquake in northeastern Iran.”

In a statement early on Sunday, Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan also expressed deepest condolences on this tragic natural disaster. “For this unfortunate natural disaster and the loss of many citizens, we offer our deepest condolences to the family of the victims, express our sympathy and solidarity with those effected and wish the wounded a speedy recovery” said the statement.

“In this difficult circumstance, it is everyone’s duty to assist those who have endured loss” the statement added.

Regime’s supreme leader condolences statement was made hours after the US government’s statement on Sunday and its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has yet to issue a statement on the tragedy, and “his cabinet’s public message lacked specifics about what relief would be provided. No top Iranian official has traveled to the province to meet with residents who lost their family members or homes; instead, Ahmadinejad visited Saudi Arabia.” Mehdi Khalaji from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy stated in a policy alert.

Iran’s government faced criticism on Monday over its timid response to two earthquakes that killed 306 people, with complaints of a lack of tents and medical supplies and facilities and about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s decision to go ahead with an overseas trip, Reuters reported.

The epicentre was 60 kilometers (40 miles) from Tabriz, close to the town of Ahar.

Iran straddles several major fault lines and has suffered several quakes in recent times, the last struck the city of Bam in 2003 when more than 25,000 lost their lives.

Earlier in May, another relatively strong earthquake jolted a small Kurdish town in western Iran near the Iraqi border on Thursday, injuring eight people and damaging buildings.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reports that Golparipour, a Kurdish political prisoner sentenced to death in Iran, wrote a letter before his recent transfer from Oroumiyeh Prison to Semnan.

It’s not clear why the transfer has been made, and rights groups are concerned it may signal his imminent execution.

Golparipour’s father has reportedly travelled to Semnan to visit his son, but prison authorities merely confirmed the transfer of his son and told him that he will not have any visitation rights until after Norooz and the New Year celebrations.

Golparipour’s fellow inmates reported that he was beaten and insulted during the transfer from Oroumiyeh Prison.

Golparipour’s letter indicates that he has resorted to letter-writing because he has “lost all legal oaths to obtain my rights.”

He rejects the death sentence handed to him and says the Islamic Republic equates “the promotion and defence of a national identity as war against the Islamic system.”

Golparipour writes that his death sentence was issued within five minutes during his “sham” trial, which violates even the provisions of the Iranian constitution.

He goes on to say that he has made official complaints to various government bodies for the “long-term arrests and physical and psychological torture that have taken me to the verge of death” but admits that his voice has not traveled beyond the prison bars.

He adds: “Currently my national identity as a Kurd and my freedom-seeking ideas are considered as corruption on earth, and all my efforts in that direction are interpreted as enmity with God, and this is overt discrimination and open injustice.”

He ends his letter urging human rights groups to assist him in any way possible.

Habibollah Golparipour was arrested in September of 2009 on his way from Mahabad to Oroumiyeh. The Revolutionary Guards intelligence agents found that he was carrying a series of books, which prompted his arrest and the ensuing months of torture. In March of 2010, he was charged with membership in the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), the militant Kurdish group, and sentenced to death.

His appeal has been turned down, and the Supreme Court has approved his death sentence.

Golparipour has reportedly denied any involvement in armed combat, and the only evidence against him is the possession of that set of books.

The attack comes after the regime’s Islamic Assembly voted to expel the UK ambassador and reduce diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom following London’s support of recently upgraded Western sanctions on Tehran, The Associated Press reported.

Militant students were shown on the state-controlled TV smashing embassy windows with rocks, hurling petrol bombs and shouting “death to England,” according to the BBC.  The students also ransacked offices within the compound, burning and confiscating documents.  The British flag was taken down, burnt, and replaced with the regime of Islamic Republic of Iran’s flag.

The occupiers called for the closure of the embassy, calling it a “spy den” — the same phrase used after militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 hostages for 444 days.

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office immediately denounced the riot, saying the regime in Iran has a “clear duty” under international law to protect diplomats and offices.

Britain has closed its embassy in Iran and withdrew all of its diplomats, insisting that Iranian regime follow suit by closing its London embassy immediately and withdrawing its diplomats in the next 48 hours.

The embassy attack also resulted in international outrage, and several countries recalled their ambassadors from Tehran, including France, Germany, Holland and Norway among others.

The UN Security Council on Tuesday condemned the storming of two British diplomatic compounds in Tehran and urged regime’s authorities to protect diplomats, the council president said.

A spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the attack by protesters on two British diplomatic compounds was a “totally unacceptable incursion”. “We strongly condemn this totally unacceptable incursion and call on the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran immediately to fulfil its international obligations… to protect diplomats and embassies.” the statement read.

Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan also issued statement condemning the attack on the UK embassy in Tehran, and described the embassy take-over “an inexcusable act contrary to diplomatic norms and impunity” the statement read.

“Considering international rules and diplomatic norms and the implacability of this attack, PDKI condemns the attack on the British embassy in Tehran, and considers it in line with those irresponsible and unfitting behaviours which have become business as usual for the regime of Islamic Republic with devastating end results for the people of Iran.” the statement added

In regards to the role of the Iranian authorities William Hague told parliament that “The idea that the Iranian authorities could not have protected our embassy, or that this assault could have taken place without some degree of regime consent, is fanciful,”

The consensus is that the people who attacked the British embassy were members of the Basij, a paramilitary volunteer militia mostly made up of young people who take their orders from the Revolutionary Guards, a branch of the regime’s military that is ostensibly under the command of the regime’s supreme leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei, Globe and Mail reported.

The PDKI Executive Bureau statement also calls attention to the regime’s oppressive security forces that recognize no borders in cracking down civilian dissent while deliberately failing to protect diplomatic missions.  “In light of the international treaties and the Vienna Conventions, the protection of such compounds is the responsibility of the regime of Islamic Republic; however, the regime’s security forces who exercise full expertise and power in clamping down on the people of Iran, demonstrated their indifference in response to this unwarranted act .”

According to latest reports, the earthquake has caused massive destructions in several Kurdish cities in Turkey resulting in the death and injury of hundreds and the casualty tolls are even expected to be higher.

On the occasion of this tragic event, Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan conveys deepest sympathy to the people of Turkey in general and our Kurdish sisters and brothers in Turkey, and heartfelt condolences to the families of those killed, and wishes wellness for the injured ones.

We also appeal to all the Kurdish people, the humanitarian and relief organizations to assist those effected and offer necessary aid.

Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan

Political Bureau

October 24, 2011

It is true that the Islamic regime does not show any respect to the decisions taken by the international community, but it does not mean that these strong voices of protest are totally ineffective on the regimes behavior. Regardless, this decision remains a strong source of encouragement for the Iranian people and the regimes’ opposition.

Interview with Mr. Hasan Sharafi, spokesman and deputy general secretary of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan

By: Jaafar Mobasher Nia
English Translation: Esmail Ebrahimi for pdki.org
Kurdistanmedia.com

July 19, 2011
-Mr. Sharafi, thank you very much for giving us the opportunity for having this interview with you in order to answer two questions regarding recent developments. As you know On July 8, 2011, the United States and the British governments announced visa bans on another group of Iranian officials who are well known human right violators. What is the PDKI`s view in respect to this?

H. Sharafi: Thank you very much, indeed.  The persons subject to this new ban are government minsters, military commanders whom have played a role in suppressing Iranians or issued violent orders, members of the judicial system who are responsible for issuing unjust sentences against human rights activists, a number of prison officials, and even defense lawyers. We as the PDKI strongly support the recent decision by the United States, Britain and Canada in regards to the human rights violations in Iran. We believe that the international community can no longer tolerate human rights violations around the world, and the Middle Eastern region; especially in Iran. We appreciate their efforts and persistent commitment in trying to put a stop to the continuous human rights violations by the Iranian regime. These decisions and actions taken by the outside world will have a considerable effect on the regime of Islamic Republic and its repressive circles to retrieve from violating Iranians’ basic rights. Also it is a source of encouragement to Iranian people and those who are fighting for freedom. Such actions are a sign to the Iranian people and freedom fighters that the international community will not remain silent when it witnesses violations of their rights. It also encourages them to standing up to Iranian dictatorship, terror and violence.

I have to repeat that we strongly support this decision, which is in support of the Iranian people, and hope that the European countries and the rest of the world can join the United States, Britain and Canada in increasing the pressure on the Iranian regime for its unlawful acts. This regime is under the impression that its existence is due to its inhumane treatment of its people, terror, and torturing of its prisoners. Furthermore, we strongly embrace this decision and see it as a positive step and hope that further efforts will follow in increasing the level of pressure on the Islamic regime in Iran.

-Mr. Sharafi, based on your analysis this decision has been taken and will be implemented but realistically speaking how effective will these recent efforts by the US, Britain and Canada in actually accelerating the prevention of further human rights violations by the Islamic Regime? (Keep in mind that Islamic Republic has repeatedly said that Security Council’s sanction resolutions are waste of paper).

-H. Sharafi: It is true that the Islamic regime does not show any respect to the decisions taken by the international community, but it does not mean that these strong voices of protest are totally ineffective on the regimes behavior. Regardless, this decision remains a strong source of encouragement for the Iranian people and the regimes’ opposition.

In regard to the other part of your question on accelerating the process of prevention, I have to say that in the past, issues like violations of human rights were considered internal issues of each country but from what we observe today it is evident that the international community is very concerned about what goes on in other countries and is carefully monitoring and discussing how to respond to the continuous violations of basic human rights by countries like Iran and others. The recent resolution along with the series of past actions and decisions taken by the democratic world in attempting to halt the antidemocratic conduct of the Islamic regime is all part of the process of preventing the ongoing violations of human rights in Iran.

Europe’s dispute with Iran has always been about Uranium enrichment and the fear of Iranian attainment of nuclear weapons, however, while this issue is the main focus of the dispute, the subject of human rights violations is still a great part of the west’s agenda, and as we can see countries like the US, Britain, and Canada continue to pay careful attention to the violations in Iran.

- Thank You Mr. Sharafi, spokesmen, and deputy secretary general of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan.

Marc Kravetz

(Translated from Libération, August 7, 1989)

Abdel Rahman Ghassemlou, murdered in Vienna on July 13^th 1989, was in every way an exceptional man, both as leader of one of the oldest and most deeply rooted national liberation movements and in his personal magnetism – his international influence, his rare if not unique ability to express the traditions and the struggle of a thousand-year-old people in terms of the values of the late 20^th century: freedom, democracy, internationalism. But he was little known to the public, and many will have learned simultaneously of his existence and of his death.

Ghassemlou was not a man of shadows, nor surrounded by mystery. The Secretary General of the Democratic Party of Kurdistan of Iran, war leader when necessary but political leader above all, he saw himself as a man of contact and dialogue. He was a passionate and tireless ambassador for this cause, who travelled all over the world to make it better known. But he was happiest sharing mud hut with his peshmergas at the bottom of some remote valley on the Iran-Iraq border, where he was constantly on the move, taking his library with him.

He liked good books and good wine – but could do without the latter more easily than the former – and was at ease at a Parisian table as in the spartan loneliness of the harsh mountain winter. At nearly sixty, he would have been 59 next December, he combined the serenity of an eastern sage with the dynamism of a youth, the curiosity of an encyclopaedist with the appetite of a bon vivant. As firm in his convictions as he was pragmatic in action, Ghessemlou seemed to reconcile without strain the toughness required for a political-military struggle and the elegant scepticism derived from his long academic career.

He had a doctorate in economics, loved history and literature and was an expert on Kurdish, Persian and Arabic poetry; he also readily quoted Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Walt Whitman or T.S. Eliot. Warm, open, approachable, using irony and humour as easily as the six or seven languages he spoke and wrote fluently, he inspired the same reaction in everyone who met him. Sympathizers with his movement, intellectuals, doctors, ministers, ambassadors, politicians of left or right. All, even if recalling only one long-ago conversation, admit that they fell for his charm. Few people in this century could boast such unanimity.

Ghassemlou began his political life as a communist in the Iranian Tudeh party, in which he rose to a position of leadership. After 15 years in Prague teaching economics, he broke with the Communist Party in August 1968 over the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. Though he abandoned the certainties of Marxist dogma he did not renounce his background. Rather, he examined its mistakes as he analysed the political situation to understand where and when justice had slipped into injustice and truth into error, or even horror, and to draw the moral conclusion. He was particularly well placed to know the difficulties of political struggle in a society that was “backward”, as he used to say, because, from being cut off from the world and deprived of its right of decision and expression, even when of access to its own culture. But he was not prepared to use underdevelopment as an ideological justification for all kinds of excesses, such as the cult of violence for its own sake, the cult of the leader in an organization, or the dictatorship of an organization over the people.

Nor could he adopt the idea that it is quite all right to use one language for public relations and the media, and then forget about it in the field. His great pride, as he was never tired of saying, was that as far as humanly possible the ideals of the movement were reflected in its everyday conduct. The PDKI has never mistreated prisoners, never used force against civilians, never taken hostages, never hijacked aircraft or planted bombs in the buses or markets of the “enemy” towns, let alone outside the war zone. Though by no means a pacifist, Ghassemlou opposed terrorism on principle, knowing  that he paid a price for that and sometimes remarking, with just a hint of bitterness, that it explained why the media showed so little interest in the Kurdish question. “Any little group can become famous by taking hostages or planting bombs,” he once wrote, “whereas liberation movements which abstain from terrorism are generally ignored.”

In November 1979 Ghassemlou condemned, on the very first day, the seizure of the diplomats and staff of the US Embassy in Tehran. For him the liberation of Iran from American control, or the Third World from great-power imperialism as the PDKI programme put it, was the objective of a long-term political struggle which entailed freedom and democracy for all.

Yet, contrary to the accusations of the Tehran regime, Washington was not won over to the Kurdish cause. Though American diplomacy had indeed been active during the Kurdish war in Iraq (1961-1975), for geostrategic reasons which Dr. Kissinger explains at length, and quite cynically in his memoirs, it never lifted a finger for the Kurds of Iran. Ghassemlou himself was banned from entering the US until the month of his death, when he was for the first time granted a visa. Just before leaving for Vienna he was preparing very carefully for his trip to the US, where he hoped to do a great deal to publicise the Kurdish problem, though he had no great illusions about the likely political result.

He knew all too well that however great the sympathy felt by a certain educated world opinion for the Kurdish cause, (not only that of the 5 million Iranian Kurds but of the 25 million scattered through five countries) the cause would never mobilise the diplomacy of the great powers, nor even of the European democracies, since they were concerned primarily with their own regional interests. He had learned this during his frequent travels abroad, especially in Europe. For although generally respected, he was rarely welcome in official circles. At best, by playing on old friendships and exploiting his membership of the Socialist International, he would now and then secure a little humanitarian aid for his people. Or, by whispering in a generous ear, would manage to resolve a problem of special importance to him. Jean-François Deniau, a minister in the Giscard government, described with some emotion how Ghassemlou had at one time laid siege of his office to get the French government to back a new edition of the only French-Kurdish dictionary, which had long been out of print.

He was a realist. I remember him telling me once that at the end of a century notable for the assertion and precarious stabilisation of different nationalisms it was no good expecting to “explode the map to allow the Kurds to build themselves an independent state on the ruins of three others”. So he demanded autonomy for Iranian Kurdistan, not independence for the Kurds. But his opponents in Tehran assumed that this was only a hypocritical tactic, crudely disguising a separatism which dared not speak its name – the first step towards a “Greater Kurdistan” uniting the Kurds of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, even Syria and the USSR. On this point, “laymen” such as [former Iranian president] Bani-Sadr were in full agreement with the fundamentalist mullahs.

Ghassemlou’s death warrant was signed as early as 1979, when he was elected as the only self-confessed secularist in Iran’s “constituent” assembly. For security reasons he refused to go to Tehran. Ayatollah Khomeiny publically regretted his absence in a televised speech, adding: “What a shame. We could have arrested him and had him shot at once.” July 13^th 1989, the day when Muslims celebrated the Id al-Kabir or “feast of pardon”, was also observed by Shiites as the 40^th day of mourning for the Imam. Was that only a coincidence? Or did the murderers, disguised as peace envoys with an official mandate from [former Iranian president] Hashemi-Rafsanjani and passports signed by [former Foreign Minister] Velayati, come from Tehran deliberately to carry out the sentence on that ritual day?

Source: “Dr. Abdoul Rahman Ghassemlou,” (Paris: Institut Kurde De Paris, Information and Liaison Bulletin, Special Issue 75 FF, July-August 1989), pp. 7-9.