The KMMK-G’s oral statement to the Ninth session of the Forum on Minority Issues on “Minorities in situations of humanitarian crises”

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United Nations

Human Rights Council

The KMMK-G’s oral statement to the Ninth session of the Forum on Minority Issues on “Minorities in situations of humanitarian crises”

 

Thank you Madam President,

The Association for Human Rights in Kurdistan of Iran-Geneva would like to draw your attention to the situation of Kurdish people facing major humanitarian crises under the rule of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Iran is party to five of the nine core international human rights treaties including the ICCPR and the Geneva Convention of 1949. Despite its international obligations, Iran’s Constitution, articles 1, 4, 12 and 15 deprives its ethnic members of political participation. Iran’s deliberate policies of denying the rights of ethnic groups, constitutes a major source of grave human rights violations. It’s targeted persecution creates instability – not only for the state, and its diverse fabric of society—but for the region as a whole.

Iran’s hostile and discriminatory policies have dramatic humanitarian consequences on Kurdish people and other minorities. For instance, the Islamic Republic has planted 20 million landmines in Kurdistan during the 8 years of Iraq-Iran war. But 27 years later, we still observe daily victims among Kurdish civilians due to the government’s unwillingness to join the Ottawa Convention and to clean Kurdistan from landmines.

The Islamic Republic has also established mandatory revolutionary tribunals to execute drug related offenders and Moharebe (an imaginary crime against God). This state-sponsored violence also constitutes a major humanitarian tragedy and a clear violation of international law. Since the inception of the Islamic republic in 1979, fifteen thousand prisoners mostly belonging to Kurdish people and Afghan refugees have been executed for and under the cover of drug related offences.

In august 2016, and despite the high commissioner’s warning, Iran committed mass and summary executions of 20 Kurdish prisoners for Moharebe and continues the blind killing of Kurdish kulbar (border couriers). Such killings have triggered serious concern that ethnic war can spiral in the region. We ought not to forget that the worst cases of massacres in this century including the genocides of Rwanda and Srebrenica were triggered by ethnic tensions.

In respect to the environment, the Islamic Republic of Iran ignores UN expert warnings and continues to divert the rivers in Kurdistan and to neglect the lake of Wermê (Urumiyeh), which is threatened, of draughtiness. This policy has already caused the displacement of hundreds of thousands people and constitutes a major environmental disaster for the Kurdish people.

Ultimately, we demand the International Community, and in particular EU governments, to factor human rights, including the rights of ethnic groups, into all bilateral dealings with the Islamic Republic. We also hope that Special Rapporteur Ms. Rita IZSÁK, in her reports and in periodic statements, will be allowed to visit Iran and to provide a report on the rights of the Kurdish people facing genocidal policies.

Taimoor Aliassi, The Association for Human Rights in Kurdistan of Iran-Geneva (KMMK-G)

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