MESOPOTAMIA NEWS IRANIAN HANGMEN – Iran executed 59 ethnic Kurds, killed 59 Kurdish cross-border porters in 2020: watchdog

Posted on MESOPOTAMIA NEWS MESOP   1 Jan 2021

SNA, Iranian Kurdistan,— At least 59 ethnic Kurds were executed in Iranian prisons in 2020, Hengaw Organization for Human Rights said on Thursday.

The organization, which closely monitors developments in Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhelat), released its yearly report, which said also that 4 Kurdish prisoners were executed on political charges.

The report also said that at least 59 Kurdish cross-border porters (Kolbars) killed and 179 others injured by Iranian security forces in Iranian Kurdistan in 2020. West Azerbaijan (Urmiye) was the deadliest province.

Kolbars carry goods across the mountainous border between Iran, Iraq and Turkey on their backs. Despite extreme temperatures in winter and summer, they risk their lives in the treacherous mountain passes to make ends meet.

In 2019, 76 Iranian Kurdish kolbars were killed, while in 2018 at least 71 Kurdish kolbers were killed.

Ever since its emergence in 1979 the Islamic regime imposed discriminatory rules and laws against the Kurds in all social, political and economic fields.

Iran’s Kurdish minority live mainly in the west and north-west of the country. They experience discrimination in the enjoyment of their religious, economic and cultural rights.

Parents are banned from registering their babies with certain Kurdish names, and religious minorities that are mainly or partially Kurdish are targeted by measures designed to stigmatize and isolate them.

Kurds are also discriminated against in their access to employment, adequate housing and political rights, and so suffer entrenched poverty, which has further marginalized them.

Kurdish human rights defenders, community activists, and journalists often face arbitrary arrest and prosecution. Others – including some political activists – suffer torture, grossly unfair trials before Revolutionary Courts and, in some cases, the death penalty.

Estimate to over 12 million Kurds live in Iranian Kurdistan.