MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : WEEKLY REPORT KURDISTAN / IRAN – 6. Nov 2019
- Last Thursday, Iranian border guards injured a Kurdish man from Sewllawa named Jamal Mohammdi. Mohammdi was shot while tending his farm after being mistakenly identified as a Kurdish border porter (Kolbar). Another Kolbar, Payman Yousifi, died from injuries suffered 10 days ago at the hands of Iranian authorities near Sardasht. Simultaneously, near Saqqez, a Kurdish shepherd lost his leg when he triggered a landmine. 61 Kolbars have been killed and at least 120 have been wounded since the beginning of 2019.
- A number of Kurdish activists remain in Iranian jails for protesting Turkey’s October incursion into the Kurdish region of Syria. The fate of Ferhad Muradi, a young Kurd from Sanandaj, remains unknown since his arrest on October 10, 2019. Sabat Rawnqi from Sewllawa, who was arrested on October 5, 2019, also remains unaccounted for. Both men’s families have spared no effort in attempting to locate them. Meanwhile, a political prisoner named Iqbal Zerai launched a hunger strike in protest of Iranian intelligence’s (Ettela’at) decision to detain him following the completion of a previously imposed sentence. Zerai was sentenced to five years in prison in 2015 for “membership of a Kurdish opposition party.”
- Iranian Kurdistan’s suicide rate continues to rise due to poor living conditions and the Iranian regime’s persecution of Kurds. According to the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, seven people have committed suicide in Sanandaj over the past several weeks. Concurrently, a 28-year-old committed suicide in Dehgolan and a 63-year-old took their own life in Mehabad.
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