PDKI Calls for Action on Human Rights and Democracy at Global SI Council

On December 21-22, a delegation from the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) participated in the Global Council of the Socialist International (SI) in Rabat, Morocco. Addressing an audience of distinguished leaders, members and participants, the PDKI delegation highlighted critical issues facing Iran’s nationalities.

The speech highlighted the Islamic Republic of Iran’s systemic human rights violations, including the suppression of Kurdish cultural and educational rights, women’s equality, and ethnic diversity. The delegation also called attention to Iran’s state-sponsored terrorism, regional destabilization, and ongoing atrocities, emphasizing the need for international accountability and solidarity with the Kurdish people’s struggle.

The delegation called for global support for Iran’s democratic movements, particularly the Jina Movement and urged the Socialist International and the wider international community to take concrete action in support of a democratic and secular Iran.

The full speech:

Honorable Mr. President!
Dear madam Secretary General!
Members of the presidium of the Socialist International!
Dear participants of the council meeting!

On behalf of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and the members of our delegation, let me convey our warmest greetings. I’m glad to be participating in this important meeting and I hope we will have fruitful discussions during the meeting, and we will be able to fulfill the goals of this meeting and push forward our great organization.

Ladies and gentlemen!

This meeting is taking place in a sensitive period, both internationally and from the regional point of view, and I am looking forward discussing the challenges we are facing during this meeting. Hence, I hope that the political issues and the questions which are planned to be discussed in our meetings are dealt with in a professional manner and appropriate approaches will be taken.

I may not be able to address all the issues in detail within the short time that I’ve been given, but what is more interesting for us as PDKI, is the issue of violations against the human rights, especially of the marginalized ethnics of Iran, for instance the lack of the right of getting educated in your own mother tongue, for millions of Kurdish and other non-Persian nationalities children in Iran, the women’s equal rights, the denial of the identity, the cultural rights and the ethnic diversity of the country by the Islamic republic of Iran and its perpetual and systematic work to eradicate this diversity.

Dear comrades!

We are confident that by now, you are all aware of PDKI’s struggle and immense sacrifices for institutionalizing democracy and for attaining the Kurdish rights in Iran. We have not only lost two of our secretary generals, who were assassinated by the Islamic of Iran on European soil, but we have also been targeted by the Iranian state sponsored terrorism in its neighboring countries. A judicially proven Iranian state sponsored terrorism is the Mykonos case regarding Dr. Sharafkandi in 1992, who was assassinated in Berlin, Germany. By the way he had come to Germany to participate in one of SI meeting.

Apart from the continuation of Islamic Republic’s terror reign in the past decades, it has militarized the Kurdish region, suppressed the protest movements, imprisoned the political activists, among them are members and sympathizers of our party who in many cases have been executed. At the same time, outside its borders and by violating the sovereignty of Iraq and Kurdistan Regional Government, defying the international law, it has targeted the refugee camps inhabited by Kurdish dissidents using drones and ballistic missiles, deep inside the Iraqi soil.

Honorable members of the Socialist International!

I would like to draw your attention to the flagrant violation of the human rights in Iran and the atrocities committed by this regime, which are still ongoing, often referred to as an internal affair. We believe that if the international community, including the European countries had reacted properly to the assassination of our legendary leader Dr. Ghassemlou in Vienna, Austria in 1989 and had held the Islamic Republic accountable for that heinous crime, maybe the assassination in the Mykonos Restaurant in Germany and many other assassinations against the Iranian opposition all over the democratic Europe would have not taken place. But the silence and inaction of the international community emboldened the Islamic Republic to continue and widen its state sponsored terrorism all over the world and its interventionist policies in the Middle East, which has led to today’s regional instability

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Apart from Islamic Republic’s merciless suppression of any civil and peaceful movements and offending the human dignity both inside the country, and at regional and international level, by its state sponsored terrorism, continuation of its nuclear, missile and weapons of mass destructions programs, it has created many conflicts and regional instability. The Islamic Republic’s foreign policy, based on its reactionary ideology, has been creating different militia groups, weaponizing them with drones and missiles, resulting in much of the current instability seen in the Middle East and its repercussion has affected the western countries too.

The interventions in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria are evident of this conflict creating politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Now, more than a year after Hamas and Hezbollah, Iranian backed militias in Iraq and Yemen’s war against Israel, which started by the covert and overt support from the Islamic Republic, and after the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria; we expect the international community, the US, EU and other democratic countries, to take the recent developments in the Middle East seriously and support the democratic movements of the peoples of the region for their rights. We urge them not to stay silence towards the Islamic Republic’s violations against the human rights and make the regime accountable for its atrocities. At the same time, we urge them to show their support to the Iranian peoples and the Jina movement (with its globally know slogan “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” or “Woman, Life, Freedom”) with the goal to establish a democratic and secular political system in Iran.

I take the opportunity to urge our sister parties within the SI and other humanist organizations to support our legitimate movement in our struggle against the Islamic Republic and attaining our political, national, and human rights under the slogan “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi”. We as Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan believe that in this sensitive situation, which is prevailing in the Middle East, we should seize the opportunities arisen from the latest developments in the region, and both now and in the future, we ask for the support and tangible measures from the international organizations and particularly the Socialist International.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about Iran, the ethnic groups inside that country and the violations against their rights committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan