ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Shopkeepers and business owners in several border cities in Iranian Kurdistan are on strike for a seventh consecutive day protesting a government decision that effectively puts some 75,000 kolbars out of work.
Earlier this week, strikers shouted down a representative of the Supreme Leader when he visited the affected areas to hear their demands.
Kolbars are semi-official cross-border porters who carry goods on their backs from the Kurdistan Region to the Iranian side. They risk injury or death in the harsh mountainous terrain where legacy land mines from the Iran-Iraq war are still a major concern. They have also frequently been fired on by Iranian border guards.
There are 75,000 to 80,000 kolbars in the border areas. Iranian authorities have struggled for years to regulate or shut down the trade.
The unofficial or semi-official border crossings used by the kolbars have been closed for about three months, meaning they have to go through the official border points where they are subject to high customs tariffs, eating into their already meager profits.
People in Baneh, Marivan, Saqqez, and Javanrud have joined the protest action.
Saaed Jalili, who represents the Supreme Leader at the country's Security Council, visited Baneh where he talked to some of the strikers. He promised to convey their demands to the government in Tehran.
In a public meeting, one man expressed his discontent to Jalili: “There have been five to six cases of killing kolbars. This man says 'thank you, the security forces have lived up to their duty.’”
"Whenever you open your mouth, somebody will pull you by your ears and tell you 'be silent,'” he continued.
He said the authorities have tried to end the protest action by threatening to deploy riot police and claimed some security forces have already fired live ammunition into the air to scare the kolbars and businessmen.
But they will not be scared, he said, because they cannot take it anymore.
"I am ready to do whatever needed for my family," he said. "God knows that I am ready to kill an ordinary soldier or the highest ranking security officer for my wife and children, if that is what it takes," he said in a defiant yet desperate message to the official.
Others in the crowd urged him to stop, but he continued, saying they are law-abiding citizens who do not cause trouble if they are just allowed to do their work.
A number of protesters have been arrested. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has identified at least three people who have been arrested: Rzgar Rafahi, Riza Asadi, and Muhsin Alizada.
The France-based monitor said authorities have also carried out house raids in Baneh and some peple were “harshly beaten.”
In another video shared online by human rights activists, a man appeared saying, "We are not in a fight against the state. We want bread for our families."
Many stretched long, empty tablecloths on the streets to symbolize their struggle to put bread on the table for their families.
"Let the state know that we are hungry, that we do not have an income," one striker said.
Kolbars and shopkeepers in #Mariwan set an empty tablecloth (to symbolise the fact that #kolbars cannot feed their families) in Protest to the Closure of Border Crossings and the High Cost of Customs. #TwitterKurds #Kurdistan #Iran pic.twitter.com/4M5BxCQhHp
— KurdistanHumanRights (@KurdistanHRN) April 17, 2018
The affected cities are mainly located in Kurdistan Province, northwestern Iran that shares a border with the Kurdistan Region.
The Kurdish provinces are among the poorest in Iran.
Kurdistan Governor Bahman Morad Nia said on Friday that they are involved in efforts to find a solution, but cautioned it "will take time and requires patience."
He said that the state is working to put in a place a legal framework that will provide kolbars with “decent” jobs and receive their fair share of the wealth created in border trade.
"Good news is on the way," he said, and urged calm.
"I call on the beloved people... to avoid taking part in emotional statements that can be misused by perverted elements, one that causes damage to the people," he said in remarks to his media office.
Depending on goods transported on the backs of kolbars as a prime source of revenue in Kurdistan Province is not acceptable, Morad Nia said, stressing that other areas should be developed, such as tourism, agriculture, and industry.
Some ideas that have been floated by local governments to address the issue include providing tariff relief to border traders such as the kolbars or investment in water management projects to create jobs in the agriculture sector.
The deputy mayor of Baneh, Najad Shahidi, told state-run IRNA news agency that unemployment in the city was 12 percent in the fall of 2017, down from 16 percent the year before.
He added that the semi-official border crossings used by the kolbars were closed at the demand of the Iraqi government.
The Kurdistan Region has a number of semi-official borders with Iran including Tawela or Shushme located in Biyara sub-district. An Iraqi team recently visited the border gates to assess whether they can meet requirements to be turned into official borders.
