The Brussels-based Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) has accused the Iranian government of continuing its brutality against the Kurdish people and said Monday’s execution of four Kurdish prisoners was politically motivated.
The four Kurdish political prisoners, Pejman Fatehi, 28, Mohsen Mazloum, 27, Vafa Azarbar, 26, and Mohammad Faramarzi, 28, were hanged in Karaj after a secret trial widely criticised as unfair. They had been held incommunicado for 18 months, their case marred by ambiguity and lack of access to legal representation.
The charges of espionage on which the Iranian authorities based the death sentences have been dismissed by the KNK as unproven allegations that lack credibility.
“The killing of those who demand human and cultural rights and raise their voices for self-determination is an indictment of the oppressive, bloodthirsty Iranian regime,” the KNK said in the written statement released on Monday, honouring the memory of the victims.
The timing of the executions, amid Iran’s efforts to portray itself as a guardian of Palestinian rights during the ongoing Hamas-Israel conflict, is described by the KNK as hypocritical. Highlighting Iran’s destabilising role in the Middle East, the KNK accused the Iranian government of perpetuating conflicts throughout the region.
The executive council of the umbrella organisation also pointed out that the timing of these acts was strategic, coming shortly after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara.
The KNK points to the resilience of Iran’s oppressed peoples, religious communities and women, exemplified by the Jin Jiyan Azadî (Women’s Freedom of Life) resistance movement.
The umbrella organisation called for an end to the oppression of women, Kurds and other minorities in Iran and predicted that the future of Iran will be shaped by this resistance, despite the oppressive regime’s attempts to crush it.
“The Iranian regime’s policy of enmity, death and massacres of the Kurdish people will surely be defeated,” the statement concluded.
