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Iran
- Iranian security forces continued to serve as the main instrument of the regime’s crackdown on Kurdish political activity by arresting a Kurdish man named Hassan Qadir Nazhad in Saqqez on Wednesday. Iranian security forces also detained a female Kurdish activist from Ilam named Somaia Kargarian in Tehran on Friday and confiscated her electronic devices. At the same time, several human rights organizations released reports detailing the continued unlawful detention of numerous Kurdish activists, including Farshad Fatahi, who has been detained for over a month, and Khabit Mafakhary, who has been detained for 55 days. Finally, the Kurdish political prisoner Shaker Behrouz was charged with “killing a member of the IRGC.” Behrouz was previously sentenced to death for “carrying arms against the state” in August and remains in the custody of Iranian intelligence officers (Ettela’at).
- In the latest chapter of the Iranian regime’s ongoing campaign against the Kurdish border porters known as Kolbars, Islamic Republic of Iran Army (Artesh) personnel seized 200 cattle in the Hawraman region and, according to the Kurdistan Human Rights Association (KMMK), wounded two of the livestock owners who attempted to flee during the raid. Simultaneously, Iranian authorities shot and wounded a Kolbar named Hamid Ahmadi in Piranshahr on Saturday. Lastly, Iranian border guards wounded a Kolbar from Baneh named Baset Mohammadi on Sunday near the Iran-Iraq border in Hangazhal.
Iraq
- The Council of Representatives of Iraq (CRI) held two separate sessions on Saturday and Monday that resulted in the passage of a new election law, though Kirkuk Governorate was left out due to a failure to reach an agreement on its status. The new election law does away with the previous system, which treated each governorate as an electoral constituency, and establishes electoral constituencies across the entire country. The CRI is set to hold a final vote on Kirkuk Governorate’s election law on Wednesday, which has been held up by the governorate’s Kurdish, Arab, and Turkomans each pushing for different boundary lines regarding the new electoral constituencies.
- ISIS (Da’esh) terrorists released photographs and details of their murder of three Kurdish civilians in Kirkuk’s Shwan District that occurred over a week ago. That said, Peshmerga scouts launched a 24-hour operation to clear Da’esh from the area on Saturday. Meanwhile, the US-led coalition launched several airstrikes near Makhmour on Monday that neutralized four Da’esh terrorists. Concurrently, security forces arrested two Da’esh operatives in Kirkuk Governate’s Hawija District’s Riyad sub-district and detained two more in Kirkuk city. The region, known as the “Disputed Territories,” has remained blighted by a deteriorating security situation since Iraqi forces and Iranian-backed militias seized control and removed the Peshmerga on October 16, 2017.
- The head of the North Axis Popular Mobilization Unit (PMU), Abu Raza an Najar, announced the formation of a new 500-man PMU brigade in Kirkuk on Sunday. The PMU brigade will be named after the former head of the PMUs, Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, who was killed alongside Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani by a US drone strike on January 3, 2020.
Syria
- Turkish forces and their Islamist proxies launched several attacks on villages near Ain Essa and the M4 Motorway last week. Though the attacks were intended to target the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), they damaged civilian homes. Prior Turkish artillery attacks in Ain Essa resulted in the death of a child on October 16. That said, the SDF announced it repelled attacks from the “Turkish occupation army mercenaries” in al Saida village near Ain Essa and killed “10” of the attackers on Friday. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s continuing threats have raised fears of a new Turkish invasion among northeastern Syria’s Kurds, and Turkish forces and their jihadist allies have violated the ceasefire agreed upon after their October 2019 invasion of the region over 800 times.
- Dozens of Turkish-backed jihadists in the Turkish-occupied town of Sari Kani (Ras al-Ain) raised Da’esh flags and burned the French flag in support of President Erdogan’s vocal attacks on French President Emmanuel Macron. SDF commander-in-chief Mazloum Abdi responded by expressing support for President Macron and said, “French President Emmanuel Macron helped protect Muslims from the Islamic State and played a major role in defeating the organization and protecting human values.” Abdi also described Erdogan as an individual “who supports Da’esh and uses “Islam for his personal interests.”
Turkey
- The Grand National Assembly of Turkey sent stripping of parliamentary immunity cases against ten more pro-Kurdish legislators from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) to its justice committee for review last week. 20 members of the HDP have been stripped of parliamentary immunity since 2016, and 11 of those stripped have been jailed, including former leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag.
- The Turkish government continued its campaign of mass arrests intended to stifle Kurdish political activity by arresting numerous HDP members and Kurdish activists. On Wednesday, Turkish authorities raided the homes of 12 HDP members in Kahramanmaras (Maraş) Province’s Nurhak and Ekinözü districts and detained them. In Antalya, a court sentenced council member Nihat Akkaya to 10 months in prison for adding “Mr” to Abdullah Ocalan’s name during a speech in 2019. Turkish police also detained the HDP provincial co-chairs Abdullah Ekelik and Gönül Öztürk in Ağrı Province’s Doğubayazıt District. Moreover, Turkish authorities arrested a number of HDP youth after a gathering to prevent an anti-government protest in Istanbul’s Kadıköy District on Sunday. Simultaneously, a court in Siirt sentenced deposed Kurdish co-mayor Tuncer Bakirha to 10 years, 10 months, and 11 days in prison for “being a member of a terrorist organization.” Finally, Turkish police arrested former Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) lawmaker Ibrahim Binci and HDP assembly member Mesut Bağcık.
- HDP Co-Chair Mithat Sancar held a meeting with the Kurdish parties’ alliance of 2019 named “Kurdistan Alliance” and expressed his view the Kurdish alliance is beyond elections in saying, “We have already mentioned this step several times since the local elections in March 2019. But now, for the first time, we were able to discuss openly and concretely our goals to exist permanently as an alliance.” The “Kurdistan Alliance” consists of the HDP and several other nationalist parties.