Kurdistan’s Weekly Brief October 6, 2020

Iran 

• The Iranian regime continued its campaign of repression aimed at Kurdish activism last week. In Marivan, Iranian intelligence officers (Ettela’at) arrested two brothers, Abdul Parto and Pshtiwan Parto, in Nai village. On Sunday, a Kurdish prisoner in Urmia named Adel Mokaram sewed his lips shut to protest a 10-month sentence he received without trial. Mokaram was previously deported from Turkey after being denied asylum. Furthermore, Iranian authorities arrested a Kurdish man named Shahriar Pourali without charge in the rural areas surrounding Urmia. Likewise, Iranian security forces arrested three Kurds in Sanandaj for “aiding Kurdish opposition parties,” and Ettela’at officers detained a Kurd named Melad Waissi. Also, in Sanandaj, the Kurdistan Human Rights Association (KMMK) reported Iranian authorities closed Kurdish human rights advocate Mokhtar Zeraai’s law firm for failing to display the portrait of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, which is mandatory for all businesses. Zeraai has been detained by Iranian authorities on several previous occasions, including a 2018 arrest for criticizing Khamenei. Meanwhile, a Kurdish man named Rostam Ibrahimi was arrested for “cooperation with a Kurdish opposition party” in Kamyaran, and Iranian authorities arrested a religious student named Husam Abdullah for “disruption of national security” in Kermanshah’s Zahedan city. 
• Iranian authorities continued to target Kurdish border porters (Kolbars) and killed a 28-year-old Kolbar named Hewa Zeraai near Baneh on Friday. Also, near Baneh, Iranian border guards severely wounded a Kolbar and arrested several more. Finally, Iranian authorities wounded a Kolbar named Mehdi Rasolzada near Sardasht and another named Sohaib Ferdosi in Nowsud Heights. 

Iraq

• Iranian-backed militias responded to news of potential US plans to relocate its Baghdad embassy to Erbil by targeting an American base in the city with several rockets on Wednesday. The rockets caused property damage and were fired from Nineveh Governorate’s Bartela District, which has been occupied by Iranian-backed militias since October 17, 2017. More importantly, Iran used the attack to illustrate its ability to target US assets anywhere in Iraq. The Office of the President of Kurdistan Region denounced the attack and described it as “an act of aggression against the people of the Kurdistan Region and the allies in the war against terrorism.” 
• The Kurdistan Regional Parliament held a hearing to address the region’s continuing financial issues and delayed payments to government employees last week. The hearing was attended by Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Masrour Barzani and Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talibani and focused heavily on the economic challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Among other things, the continuing pandemic has created an economic crisis that has hindered the Government of Iraq’s (GOI) ability to provide funding for government employee salaries in Iraqi Kurdistan despite a previous agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to do so.
• Turkey suspended all flights to and from Iraq, including Iraqi Kurdistan, due to what Turkish officials claimed were concerns regarding the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, the Turkish military continued its incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan that it claims is intended to combat the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). That said, Turkish air and artillery strikes caused the evacuation of five more villages in Zakho, while Turkey’s ongoing military operations in the region have killed dozens of civilians and displaced thousands more.
• The Yazidi spiritual and religious leader Khurto Hajji Ismael, also known as “Baba Sheikh,” passed away from health complications at the age of 87 on Thursday. Ismael’s successor will be chosen 40 days after his passing. 

Syria 

• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to follow up Turkey’s bloody invasion of Syria’s Kurdish region in October 2019 with a new incursion during a speech on Saturday. Simultaneously, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) officials criticized both the US and Russia for failing to hold Turkey accountable for its proxies’ continuing attacks on northeastern Syria’s Kurds that violate separate ceasefire agreements reached with both nations in 2019.
• Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) leader Ilham Ahmed announced that all Syrian citizens settled in al Hawl camp, which holds tens of thousands of ISIS (Da’esh) relatives, are free to leave. Ahmed’s remarks follow her participation in the “Sixth Dialogue Symposium” in Raqqa that sought to devise solutions for the region’s numerous outstanding issues. At the same time, US officials announced 27 American Da’esh members were repatriated.
• The SDF arrested a Da’esh assassination cell in Deir Ez Zor Governorate’s Diban city on Monday. Concurrently, the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS announced several airstrikes targeting Da’esh training camps in Syria’s desert region known as Badiya. 

Turkey 

• The Turkish government continued its crackdown on Kurdish political activity by conducting mass arrests of elected officials from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) for the second week in a row. On Thursday, Turkish authorities arrested Kars co-mayor Shevin Alaca, whose arrest follows the detention of the city’s other co-mayor, Ayhan Bilgan, on September 25. Alaca was replaced with a government trustee on Saturday who promptly dissolved the city’s Kurdish-majority council on Sunday. Moreover, the Turkish government issued 19 more arrest warrants targeting Kurdish politicians and activists who participated in a protest against the Turkish government in 2014. Turkish police also raided an HDP office in Aydin Province’s Germencik District, arrested HDP district co-chair Takin Erikli and executive Ali Shimsheker, and confiscated all of the office’s electronic devices. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch responded to these developments by criticizing Turkey for “detaining politicians from a party that won nearly 12 percent of the vote in the 2018 general election” and claiming such actions are “part of an ongoing Turkish policy that criminalizes political opposition.”
• On Wednesday, 55-year-old Servet Turgut, who was a father of seven children, succumbed to injuries he received from being thrown out of a helicopter by Turkish soldiers. Turkish police then attacked Turgut’s funeral, which was held in his hometown of Van, and prevented politicians, journalists, and local residents from attending. 
• A Turkish court in Shirnak sentenced eight Kurds to three months and 15 days in prison for attending the 2008 funeral of a PKK-linked man who was killed by the Turkish government. The Kurds were charged with “committing a crime on behalf of an illegal organization.”