Iranian Kurdistan, also known as East Kurdistan, is the unofficial name give to the northwest of Iran, which is occupied by the Kurds. It extends from Mount Ararat, in the north to the Zagros Mountains in the south. The region shares borders with Iraq, Turkey and Armenia, all of which take in the indigenous Kurd populations and in their entirety they form a geographic-cultural area called “Kurdistan”. This area is rich in natural resources, but more than 30 years of economic exploitation have impeded the access of the Kurds to local resources, and they have been forced to depend mainly on agriculture.
Most of the Iranian Kurds are Sunni Muslims and have been persecuted, discriminated against and marginalized by the Shiite Muslims of Iran. Even though they had hopes and supported the Iranian Revolution in the beginning, the Iranian Kurds sought an autonomous regime as part of a more open Iran, but this led the Ayatollah Khomeini to declare Jihad (Holy War) on the Kurdish people.
As a result, there has been a long military, economic and psychological war against the Kurdish civilian population in the area. More than just a few experts have considered it a “systematic genocide campaign”. This campaign has caused the death of tens of thousands of innocent people. The Iranian Kurds have struggled for a long time to improve their governmental representation and the protection of their basic human rights, through the creation of a Federal State.
The region of Iranian Kurdistan is rich in natural resources and counts on a significant percentage Iran’s water. Nevertheless, very little has been invested in this region’s economic development, and this reflects on the amply discriminatory system.
Before this, the Kurdish population has been mainly based on agriculture as its main source of income, but this has also been affected by governmental policies of placing mine fields in cultivation zones.
One of the fundamental factors in the lack of social development in Kurdistan has been the government’s educational policies. All teaching is done in Persian and the use of other indigenous languages is prohibited. This is a barrier to transmitting Kurdish history, oral traditions, philosophies and writing systems to future generations.
The state discrimination policy has impeded them from accessing education, so there is a high level of illiteracy in Kurdistan.
The Organisation of the Unrepresented United Nations (UUN) condemns the policies and actions taken by the Iranian government against the Kurd population in Iran, in particular since 1979. Specifically, the Unrepresented United Nations (UUN) condemns the military fight against the Kurdish people that has caused the death of thousands of people; in addition, it condemns the flagrant violation of the human rights, the systematic discrimination in employment, education and family, and the continuous political exclusion to which the Iranian Kurdistan is subjected.
Representation of minorities in politics is essential in developing the democratic process; therefore, the Unrepresented United Nations (UUN) feels that the Iranian Kurds need to carry out a more important role in decisions about their future. The subject of federalism has been continuously refused by the authorities, but democratic decentralization will allow marginalized groups to participate more actively in local matters.