Some two million ethnic Kurds in Khorasan province, descended from deportees banished to the Iranian province in the 17th century, are banned by Tehran’s tight grip from expressing their Kurdish past, according to an organization that is trying to highlight their plight.
Their existence remains largely unknown, says Afrasiab Shekofteh, co-founder of the London-based Kurmanj People of Khorasan.
“Khorasani Kurds are not allowed to be educated in their own mother language,” he says. “Kurds in Khorasan don’t have even one primary school in their own mother tongue.”
The Kurds of Khorasan are descended from ancestors who had remained largely neutral in the war between Safavid Persia and the Ottoman Turks in the 17th century. But because they lived on the borders, some 50,000 were deported east to Khorasan to prevent possible alliances with the Ottomans.
Four centuries later and against all odds, the Khorasan Kurds maintain their language, traditions and culture, despite being physically cut off from the rest of their Kurdish kin in Iran’s western regions. They speak Kurmanji, the Kurdish dialect that is spoken by more than 20 million Kurds, mainly in Turkey.
“Right now Iran is a one language, one religion, one nation country,” says Shekofteh.
Some Kurds in Khorasan, like writer and poet Alireza Roshan, have risked harassment and prison to express their Kurdish identity. He has been held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison since September 2011.
PEN Sweden says in a report that Roshan has been accused of membership in a nonconformist minority group, named “Gonabadi.” He was convicted under Iran’s Islamic penal code of ‘’incitement and collusion with intent to disrupt national security.”
“The situation in Khorasan is very difficult for writers,” explains Shekofteh. “Iranian government censorship prevents Kurds in Khorasan from making connections with Kurds from Kurdistan.”
Without their own Kurdish newspaper, television or radio Khorasan Kurds depend on the Internet to maintain links with other Kurds around the world and to remain abreast of Kurdish issues, Shekofteh says.
According to him, the younger generation of Khorasan Kurds is keen to learn about its Kurdish past, but faces hurdles placed by the Iranian authorities.
“The Iranians don’t consider us as an ethnic minority. They say there are no Kurds there; but there are,” Shekofteh says.
Much like the millions of Kurds in Iran’s western regions, Kurds in Khorasan are not allowed the right to assembly, or educational and civil society organizations.
Shekofteh’s organization began as just a cultural society for Khorasani Kurds, but turned into a political organization in 2009. Shekofteh admits that running an organization out of London has less of an impact than working with the Khorasan Kurds on the ground.
“Being based in Khorasan would bring more change,” he adds. “We wish to have that sometime in the future, to be there in the region.”
Shekofteh says he hopes to raise awareness about the Khorasan Kurds at the Kurdish National Conference, which plans to gather all Kurdish groups around the world in Erbil this year.
He says the Khorasan Kurds were not invited to the conference, but have been promised an invitation after lodging a complaint.
Even to many Kurds, Shekofteh says, the Kurds of Khorasan seem like a mystery. He realized this at a conference he held in London in 2009, where he was asked questions about them for four hours by participants.
Despite official restrictions, Shekofteh says, Khorasan Kurds still continue their traditions, speaking their language, wearing Kurdish costumes, celebrating Newroz and holding weddings and funerals in traditional Kurdish fashion.
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