Kurdistan Human Rights Network

A year ago, Mahsa Jina Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, died in the custody of the morality police after being arrested over alleged “improper” hijab in Tehran. Her death ignited a wave of national protests that further challenged the Islamic Republic’s autocratic rule and exposed its human rights violations, including systematic violation of women’s rights. Her death inspired a powerful slogan, that originated…

As the anniversary of the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini by the government and the beginning of the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising approaches, the security institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran are carrying out widespread arrests of civilians, activists and the families of those who lost their lives in the uprising throughout Iran, particularly in Kurdish regions. At the same time, many shopkeepers and…

The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI) issued a statement on 8 August 2021 and said Mousa Babakhani, a member of the party’s central committee, was assassinated in Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It blamed the Islamic Republic of Iran for the assassination of its senior member. Mousa Babakhani, born in 1981 in Bilavar, Kermanshah province, joined the KDPI in 1999. He was based at…

In a joint letter on 12 March, thirty nine Iranian and international human rights organisations have called on the member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council to support the renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran at the 46th session of the Human Rights Council. The organisations also urged the member states…

Thirty six civil society and human rights organisations have called on international community in a joint letter on 3 February to take urgent action over the “arbitrary” detentions of Kurdish civilians and activists in the recent wave of arrests in Iran. They expressed their concern over the risk of torture, enforced disappearances, and other abuses faced by the detainees for the peaceful exercise of their…

Monday, 7 December 2020 TO: All Permanent Missions to the United Nations in New York Your Excellencies, The undersigned national, regional and international civil society organizations urge your government to support resolution A/C.3/75/L.31/Rev.1 on the promotion and protection of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, adopted by the General Assembly’s Third Committee, when it comes for adoption by its plenary later this month. This resolution provides…

Anwar Nilufri, an Iranian Kurdish asylum seeker, has been on hunger strike for more than two months in front of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Athens, Greece. Unfortunately, so far, no official authorities, institutions, and governments have taken any action towards granting him asylum or transferring him to a safe third country. Anwar Nilufri told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) about his…

Monday, 9 December 2019 To: All Permanent Missions to the United Nations in New York Your Excellencies, The undersigned national, regional and international civil society organizations urge your government to support resolution A/C.3/74/L.27, adopted by the General Assembly’s Third Committee on 14 November 2019, when it comes for adoption by its plenary later this month.   As the situation in Iran has been marked in recent weeks by another human rights crisis, in addition to…

Starting on 15 November 2019, mass protests have erupted in Iran in response to a three-fold rise in petrol costs. Protesters have called for improved living conditions amidst high levels of corruption, unemployment, poverty and discrimination across the country. Some reports have indicated that protests have occurred in 500 locations in at least 120 cities in 28 provinces, including in Isfahan, Tehran, Shiraz and…