Wave of assassinations of senior officials in Iranian Kurdistan
Mamousta Mohammad Sheikholeslam, the representative of Kurdistan Province in the Assembly of Experts, was assassinated last Thursday (September 17) in the city of Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan Province. The assembly member was shot dead by a group of unidentified individuals outside his house (Fars, September 17). Two days later (September 19), assassins shot dead Mehdi Takhtfirouz, chief of the Sanandaj city council (Peyk-e Iran, September 19). This week’s two assassinations join three other assassinations which took place in the past two weeks in Iran’s north-western Kurdistan Province.Posted on 02 October 2009 @ 13:00 GMTOn September 9, Mehdi Kamyabi, a judge who served as assistant general prosecutor in the court of Sanandaj, survived an assassination attempt when a group of masked gunmen fired several shots at the judge, injuring him (IRNA, September 9). Assassinated several days later (September 12) was Mamousta Borhan Ali, the Friday prayer leader in one of the mosques of Sanandaj. The Sunni cleric was shot dead by gunmen at the entrance to his house upon returning from the mosque. Fars news agency reported that during Iran’s last presidential campaign, the cleric supported Ahmadinejad (Fars, September 13). Four days after that, on September 16, yet another judge survived an assassination attempt. Hassan Davtalab, who was also an assistant general prosecutor in Sanandaj, was shot by gunmen outside his house.
Ali Akbar Garusi, the head of the legal department in Kurdistan Province, said in an interview granted to the Tabnak news website last week that in the wake of the wave of assassinations, special teams of the interior security forces, the Intelligence Ministry, as well as security and legal elements were established to investigate the incidents. It was his assessment that the assassinations had been carried out by armed separatist groups operating in Kurdistan Province with the cooperation of radical Sunni Muslim groups (Tabnak, September 16). When asked to comment on the wave of assassinations in Kurdistan, Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said that a government delegation headed by the interior minister and including Revolutionary Guards members would depart for Kurdistan this week on the president’s orders to investigate the recent events (Fars, September 19).
This week the conservative daily Keyhan blamed the Israeli Mossad for the recent assassinations. According to the daily, Mossad operates in the region using an espionage and intelligence center it had established in Iraqi Kurdistan (Keyhan, September 19).
Iran is home to about 4.5 million Kurds, most of them living in the provinces of Ilam, Kermanshah, Kurdistan, and West Azerbaijan. About 70 percent of them are of Sunni denomination. In January 2009, Human Rights Watch published a particularly harsh report about the repression of Kurds in Iran. The report documents how Iran’s authorities subject the Kurds to political and religious oppression, arguing that the suppression of the Iranian Kurdish minority’s rights has intensified in recent years. Among other things, the report addresses the suppression of Kurdish political and student activists, severe restrictions on the freedom of assembly in Kurdish regions, shutting down Kurdish-language dailies and periodicals, banning Kurdish publications, as well as arrests and trials of Kurdish journalists, writers, and publishers on various charges related to compromising state security. The report also mentions the religious discrimination of Sunni Kurds, in which restrictions have been imposed on Sunni religious activity in Kurdish areas and some Kurdish clerics who criticized the government have been arrested.
An Iraqi-based Kurdish resistance known as PJAK (Party for a Free Life) has been operating in Iranian Kurdistan for several years. In recent years, the activities of the resistance have resulted in violent clashes between its operatives and associated smugglers on one hand and Iranian security forces and Revolutionary Guards on the other. In addition, Iran bombarded territories in northern Iraq where PJAK has its bases.