Kurds in Iran

Group Profile
Nearly 30 million Kurds are spread throughout the world today, though the majority of the population is centered in the Middle East, where the group is considered the fourth largest ethnicity, following Arabs, Persians and Turks.[1]  Kurds, traditionally a mountain people whose economy is mainly based on agriculture and pastoralism,[2] are indigenous to the region Kurdistan, a 500,000 square kilometer area that includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.[3]  Today, these four countries house the most significant Kurdish populations, although Kurdish communities can also be found in Lebanon, Azerbaijan, Europe, the U.S. and many other countries.

The Kurdish national question has been considered since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century and the post-World War I colonial repartition of the Middle East.[4]  Throughout the 20th century, the focal point of the Kurdish national movement has shifted between Turkey, Iran and Iraq.

Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, and about 15 percent are Shia Muslims.[5]  Tens of thousands of Kurds also adhere to Nestorian, Armenian or Assyrian sects of Christianity, Judaism, or other pre-Islamic religions, including Kaka’is and Yazidis.[6]

The Kurdish language is an Indo-European tongue similar to the Farsi spoken in neighboring Iran (and very dissimilar to Arabic and Turkish, both of which belong to separate language families).[7]  Kurdish has been divided into numerous dialects, not all of which are mutually intelligible.[8]  The two most prominent dialects are Kurmanji, which is spoken in Syria, Turkey and the northernmost portions of Iraq, and Sorani, which is spoken in northwestern Iraq and Iran.[9]  Further complicating the multiplicity of dialects is the difference in alphabet: Kurds in Turkey use the Latin-Turkish script; Kurds in Iran, Iraq and Syria used a modified Arabic alphabet.[10]

Because of the confusion of dialects, some consider language to be the factor that most divides Kurds today.[11]  Yet, according to others, a principle “marker of Kurdishness has been the language.  The Kurdish language has almost always been a rallying point and inseparable part of the emic definition of Kurdishness for the leaders of the Kurdish movements in the 20th century as well as for ordinary Kurds,”[12] as the historical origins and national identity of the Kurds are often disputed. 

Kurds represent the third most prominent ethnic group in Iran, following Persians and Azeris.[13]  They are concentrated in northwest Iran in the Zagros Mountain area along the western frontiers with Turkey and Iraq.[14] Ninety-eight percent of Iranian Kurds are Muslim, with 75 percent adhering to Sunni Islam.[15]  The remaining 2 percent are Armenian and Assyrian Christians and Jews.[16]

Demography

The Kurdish population in Iran today accounts for 7 percent of the total population, or about 4.5 million people.[17] In 1970, Kurds represented 16 percent of the total population;[18] in 1987, they represented 10 percent.[19] Between 1979 and 1990, up to 50,000 Kurds were reportedly killed.[20]

Geographic Distribution

Historically, Kurds of Iran have been both urban and rural, with as much as half the rural population practicing pastoral nomadism; by the mid-1970s, however, fewer than 15 percent of Kurds were nomadic.[21]  During the 1970s there was substantial migration of rural Kurds to historic Kurdish cities including Bakhtaran, Sanandaj, Mahabad, Baneh, Bijar, Ilam, Islamabad, Saqqez, Sar-e Pol-e Zahab and Sonqor.  Educated Kurds also migrated to non-Kurdish cities such as Karaj, Tabriz and Tehran.[22]  There is also a group of approximately 350,000 Kurds living in a small area of northern Khorasan; they are descendants of Kurds whom the government forcible removed from western Iran during the 17th century.[23]

Historic Hardship

From the 10th to 12th centuries C.E. two Kurdish dynasties, the Hasanwayhid and the Ayyarids, ruled in present-day Kurdistan, and in the 12th century, Sultan Sanjar created a province called Kurdistan.  Then, during Safavid rule in the 15th and 16th centuries, bloody confrontations between Safavids and Kurds forced the relocation and deportation of Kurds and resulted in the destruction of old Kurdish cities.

During the Afghan invasion of the Safavid realm in the early 18th century, Kurds re-conquered old lands, and weaknesses of the Persian government during World War I encouraged some Kurdish chiefs to rebel against the Iranian government.[24]  However, once Reza Shah took power in 1925, he pursued a cruel policy; hundreds of Kurdish chiefs were deported and forced into exile, and their lands were confiscated by the government. In the 1920s and 1930s, Kurds manifested opposition to Reza Shah’s centralizing policies in a series of revolts.[25]

In 1941, when the British and Soviets invaded Iran to prevent pro-Axis sympathies from becoming a military alliance, the Persian Army was quickly dissolved and its ammunition was seized by many Kurds.  In 1945, without central control, the Azeris and Kurds proclaimed the Mahabad Republic, which lasted for a year, until the Shah’s troops returned, overran the republic and executed its leaders.[26]  The Shah’s policy, until he was overthrown in 1979, was somewhat more flexible than in Turkey, but practically no rights were granted to the Kurds.[27]

Another wave of nationalism engulfed the Kurds after the fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty in 1979, until Ayatollah Khomeini declared a holy war against separatism in Iranian Kurdistan.  Kurds were denied seats in the assembly of experts gathered in 1979, and were therefore deprived their political rights under the new Iranian constitution.  In 1980, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps conquered or destroyed most of the Kurdish cities, fighting to reestablish government control of the region; as a result, more than 10,000 Kurds were killed.

Ongoing Hardship

Denial of Kurdish language rights and repression in the name of Iranian nationalism has bred discontent, and Kurdish human rights activists and journalists in Iran have been targeted for their work. During demonstrations against the government in 1999, at least 20 Kurds were killed.  Even today, Sunni Islamic institutions, of which many Kurds adhere, are blocked; no Sunni mosque has been built in Tehran, despite the more than one million Sunnis living there.  In 2005, a Kurdish opposition activist, Shivan Qaderi, and two other Kurdish men were shot by Iranian security forced in Mahabad.  For six weeks following the event, riots and protests in Kurdish towns and villages persisted, with scores killed and injured and an untold number arrested without charge.  The government has shut down several major Kurdish newspapers, arresting reporters and editors.  Most recently, in July 2007, two Kurdish journalists, Adnan Hassanpur and Abdolwahed (Hiwa) Butimar have been convicted and issued death sentences for endangering national security, as well as conspiring and working to spread separatist propaganda against the state.