ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - General strikes began across Iran's Kurdish region on Thursday with shops and businesses being closed in condemnation of the Islamic Republic regime’s unprecedented crackdown in the Kurdish areas (Rojhelat) after more than 40 protesters, including children, were killed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its militia in a space of a week.
The crackdown in Rojhelat has prompted many in the international community and Iranian diaspora, as well as inside Iran, to demand that the Kurds be protected.
The IRGC has taken over the security in the Kurdish areas. On Monday, the guards created a bloodbath in the town of Javanrud in Kermanshah province, killing at least six and wounding dozens. Activists and residents in the town told Rudaw English that the IRGC has erected checkpoints across the town, militarizing it.
Videos coming out of the Kurdish areas from Bukan, Saqez, Sanandaj, Mariwan, Qorveh, Kamyaran, and Piranshahr, among many other towns, showed roads and streets deserted with all the shops and businesses shut. The strikes follow calls from Kurdish opposition groups directing Kurdish people in Iran, which number around ten million, to stage them.
Today, we sanctioned key leaders complicit in the escalating crackdowns in Iran’s Kurdistan province. In the past few days, security forces reportedly killed dozens of protesters in that province alone, whose residents describe a lockdown of their cities by military forces. 1/4
— Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley (@USEnvoyIran) November 23, 2022
In response to recent bloodshed in the Kurdish areas and following IRGC attacks on Kurdish opposition groups in the Kurdistan Region on Tuesday, the groups released a statement calling for a general strike across the Kurdish areas of Iran on Thursday in order to strengthen the unity of the people in fighting the oppression of the Islamic Republic.
General strikes began across Iran's Kurdish areas (Rojhelat) on Thursday with shops and businesses being closed in condemnation of the Islamic Republic regime’s violent crackdown
— Rudaw English (@RudawEnglish) November 24, 2022
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🎥: Kurdish Telegram channels pic.twitter.com/wBLIXWWY2U
US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that as of Thursday morning, 440 people including 61 children have been killed, in addition to 56 members of the security forces. In the Kurdish areas, the number is estimated to be at 98 protesters including 10 children.
“It has been a few days that the regime has used all its might in Kurdistan and has created a bloodbath and intends to carry out a general massacre,” read the statement from the Cooperation Center of Iranian Kurdistan’s Political Parties which include the main Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) and the leftist Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan. The Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), another Kurdish opposition group, also called for the strikes.
A 16 year old student was severely wounded when the IRGC opened fire on a group of students Sanandaj on Wednesday. Another The wounded protester was reportedly abducted from his hospital bed in Sanandaj, according to Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.
