ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Kurdish artist Hani has released a new single in support of the most recent protests in Iran. “Throughout darkest years of our hopeful and hopeless lives, we have gone and gone to the streets, calling for nothing more than a deep breath of a free life devoid of oppression, fear and coercion,” Hani, who is from Iranian Kurdistan, told Rudaw. The song is named Azadi (Freedom in English) and inspired by the work of the famed Kurdish poet Hazhar. She believes that only through unity can the Iranian people obtain their rights. “If we walk hand in hand and back to back, then the end of this play will be written by us,” said Hani is known to push the limits through her art, a career that began in 2000, while she was living in Sanandaj, a city in western Iran. There are lots of limitations and obstacles for artists in Iran due to its strict laws of the Islamic State. The performer, who is now based in Berlin, says she left Iran in 2004 due to its limitations. She recounted how people were killed, and women forced to wear black veils but that they continued to fight for their rights. After going to Germany, Kurds from all four of its parts became familiar with her work. The melody is Hani’s, but the words are from a poem written by the renowned Kurdish poet Abdurrahman Sharafkandai, affectionately known as “Hazhar Mukryani.” The accompanying music video shows the various waves of protests against the Islamic Republic since 1979 — hope and change followed by oppression. It ends with black-and-white video of impoverished Kurdish porters (kolbars) making the dangerous trek across the borders which separate Kurds in Iran from their brethren in Turkey and Iraq's Kurdistan Region. Hazhar was born in 1921 in the Kurdish city of Mahabad in Western Iran. He became a part of the short-lived Kurdish Mahabad Republic in 1946 until its collapse in 1947, when he went into exile across the Middle East. The writer then returned to Kurdistan prior to the establishment of the Kurdistan Region and became a part of the Kurdish struggle in Iraq. He was also the brother of Sadegh Sharafkandi, the second secretary-general of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI). He died in 1991 in Iran and was buried in Karaj, Iranian Kurdistan. Iranian officials have confirmed the deaths of at least 21 people during the week-long protests that engulfed cities across Iran since December 28, 2017. More than 1,000 people have been arrested, many of whom are young men in their mid-20s.
