Kurdistan Human Rights Network

The license for Artina Preschool and Sports Elementary School in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province, has been revoked, and it has been permanently closed by the province’s Supervision Council of Schools and Nongovernmental Centres.

The decision was made under pressure from the General Security Office of the Ministry of Education in Kurdistan province.

The primary school’s principal and staff had been pressured in recent months for posting stories on social media in support of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising.

Sepideh Saffarian, the founder of Artina Preschool and Sports Elementary School, announced its closure on the school’s Instagram page.

The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that pressure on the principal and staff of the elementary school by the General Security Office of the Ministry of Education in Kurdistan province had increased since October last year after the publication of stories on the school’s official Instagram.

Due to the pressures and the summoning of the school’s principal to the General Security Office, the Supervision Council of Schools and Nongovernmental Centres in Kurdistan province decided on 4 March to revoke the school’s license and permanently close it.

Despite Sepideh Saffarian’s objection to the decision, the Department of Non-Governmental Schools and Centres and the Development of Public Partnerships of the Ministry of Education upheld it on 17 July.

Security and plainclothes agents visited the school on several occasions during the anti-government protests in Sanandaj and tried to take the CCTV camera recordings at the school, but they faced opposition from the school’s administrators.

Sepideh Saffarian said: “This elementary school was founded in 2010 by Ms Sepideh Saffarian, a Master of Sports and Corrective Exercise Pathology in Sanandaj. The founder of this elementary school came up with the idea of establishing the school after she and her colleagues conducted a research among 1,500 female students in the city of Sanandaj and observed its worrying results. The aim of the school is to prevent deformities in the height structure of girls due to physical poverty (girls are less active than boys), cultural poverty (male patriarchal society and limited physical activity of girls), the way of dressing (mandatory clothing that prevented skeletal problems to be observed in girls), the lack of awareness of parents at home and at school (lack of specialised knowledge about children’s height structure problems) through sports activities.”