Kurds from Iran protest in front of UN office in Erbil

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region  — Dozens of Kurdish refugees from Iran gathered in front of the United Nations office in Erbil on Thursday to demand further rights, days after a Kurdish refugee from Iran self-immolated in front of the office over his living conditions.

One protestor told Rudaw he had been in the Kurdistan Region for years and received only 480,000 IQD from the UN once, adding he was unemployed.

“I have nothing, unless a neighbor or someone helps us, we have nothing,” protestor Rasul Rahim Pirot said.

“We are asking for our rights, we are political,” said another demonstrator, Ghazal Niknafs, adding the UN had been “disrespectful” to refugees at times. “We have fled our country because of the politics of the clerical regime. We are here and no one helps us, we are asking for our rights here.”

Behzad Mahmoudi, a 25-year-old Kurdish asylum seeker from Iran, set himself on fire on Tuesday in front of the United Nations refugee organization (UNHCR) in protest over his economic and living conditions. He was taken to the hospital with severe burns.

"They turned a blind eye” Pirot said, speaking of Mahmoudi. “We haven’t been helped here at all. The Kurds of Rojhelat (Kurdish areas of Iran) haven’t received help here.”

“The people who are here, they are here because of the crimes and terrorism of the Islamic Republic,” said Ali Khawali, a representative of the protestors in Erbil who met with the UN mission to Iraq (UNAMI) representative in the city. “It’s been four years, the people have been bleeding.”

Khawali added, “The people that you see here, all of them are people from Rojhelat who were not ready to accept these crimes and the injustice.”

He said UNAMI told him they would look into the protestors’ demands and respond to them on Sunday. “The people will not leave this place, they will stay until the UN responds,” Khawali stated.
 
Demands of the protesters include resolving the cases of political asylum seekers and sending them abroad and providing camps or residential areas for them until they are sent abroad. They also demanded the organization of “a just system without discrimination.”

In a statement to Rudaw over the self-immolation of Mahmoudi, a UNAMI spokesperson said they are “shocked and saddened with the whole incident and on behalf of the United Nations family in Iraq, wish the young man a speedy recovery.”

UNHCR said in a statement posted on Thursday they were “saddened by the tragic incident.”

“The UN medical team responded with first aid and transferred the asylum seeker to hospital where he is now receiving medical treatment,” the statement said.

Video of Mahmoud’s self-immolation quickly circulated on social media and many were outraged that reporters filmed the man setting himself on fire instead of intervening. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) issued a statement expressing their sorrow for the incident and criticizing the media coverage.

“We strongly condemn those media outlets that covered this incident cold-heartedly, disregarding journalism ethics, law, and the Kurdistan Regional Government’s guidelines,” read a statement from the KRG’s media office, calling on the authorities to “prevent such actions, and the public prosecutor should do its duty to prevent the repetition of such inhumane behavior.”

Afsana Rahimi from the organization of the Iranian Kurdistan Struggle (Sazmani Khabat) told Rudaw on Wednesday they have followed up on the cases of asylum seekers and Mahmoudi’s case in particular was sent to the UN as a special case but it was not given enough attention.

Additional reporting:
Bahroz Faraidoon
Fuad Rahim

Updated at 5:35 pm