EAST KURDISTAN SHORT CUTS

January 6, 2014 – Mariwan – Mehabad – Sanandaj (Sne) – Baneh – Saqiz – Paweh- Kermanshah – Urmiye (Orumiye), Nowsud, Sardasht, Bokan, [Eastern Kurdistan, Iranian Kurdistan]

Iranian security forces killed a Kurdish man and dragged his body behind a car

PDKI : Iranian security forces dragged the body of a 26-year-old Kurdish man behind a car for two kilometers after that the security forces had killed him. On Saturday, January 4, Iranian security forces shot and killed a 26-year-old Kurdish man by the name of Saman Khzri in the town of Sardasht. Khzri’s body was stripped naked and dragged behind a car for two kilometers, witnesses told Kurdpa. “The security forces dumped the naked body of this 26-year-old youth in a place called Khre Shiwe Kodo”, a witness said. Saman Khzri had just gotten married a couple of months ago. pdki.org

In Iran, violence against women highest among Kurds

RUDAW – About 88 percent of women in Iran’s Kurdistan Province reportedly experience some form of abuse, among the highest in the country. According to the BBC’s Persian service, 66.3 percent of Iranian women experience violence in their lives, but Kurdistan Province and the city of Ahvaz are reported to be the two most violent cities for females. The United Nations defines violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion, or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” Despite the huge numbers of women living with abuse in Kurdistan Province, abusive men enjoy impunity under the patriarchal laws of Iran’s Islamic Republic. According to the Kurdpa news agency, in the Fall of 2013, 33 Kurdish women were reported to have experienced violence. Fifteen women committed suicide, eight were imprisoned (three of them activists) and seven were executed by the Iranian government.  Activists say that Kurdish men and women need to receive education about the definition of violence and its effects on women, children and society. They complain that the Iranian government does not seem to have any intention of raising awareness in this regard and only Kurds themselves can make a difference

Kurdish man injured in landmine explosion in Ilam

Pdki : Ilam: A 55-year-old Kurdish man lost one of his legs in a landmine explosion in village of Qalawezane, located in the Ilam province, Kurdpa reported. Hussein Daweri, a 55-year-old Kurdish man, stepped on a landmine that was left from the Iran-Iraq war.  Residents of Ilam said that Iranian authorities has not cleared the region of thousands of landmines left from the Iran-Iraq war despite numerous promises to do so. According to a report published last week by the local authorities in the Kurdish town of Qasre Shirin 13 individuals have died and another 78 have been injured in 105 landmine explosions during the past 22 months in and around the town. Residents of the Qasre Shirin believe that the real numbers of landmine victims are much higher but the local authorities are hiding the real numbers on orders of the government. Every year hundreds of Kurds fall victim to landmine explosions in Iranian Kurdistan. pdki.org