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Iran
- Last week, Iranian security forces killed six Kurdish border porters known as Kolbars and injured five more. On Wednesday, Iranian security forces ambushed and killed two Kolbars in Oshnavieh (Shino) city. The Kurdish human rights group Hengaw accused Iraqi militias loyal to the Iranian regime of killing the Kolbars after they were deployed to the city by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in mid-April. On Saturday, one Kolbar was killed and three wounded when Iranian border guards ambushed a group of Kolbars in the Iran-Iraq border region near Nowsud. Iranian border guards also attacked a group of Kolbars and wounded one near Salmas. On Sunday, two Kolbars drowned while crossing a lake in the Tergever district of Urmia. On Tuesday, the corpse of a Kolbar named Abbas Qadirzada was found near Baneh. Qadirzada had been missing for three months and froze to death during a winter storm.
- An Islamic Revolutionary Court sentenced a Kurdish activist from Divandarreh to seven years in prison. Ataollah Ahsani was charged with “insulting the holy idols” after his participation in protests against the Iranian regime in 2018. In Kermanshah, an Islamic Revolutionary Court sentenced a Kurdish activist, Daniel Darab, to one year in prison for “efforts against national security.” In Urmia, two Kurds were sentenced to five years in prison for “membership of the opposition parties.” The Kurdistan Human Rights Association (KMMK) reported that Bihzhad Shahswar and Mikael Shahswar were detained in October of 2018.
- On the occasion of the International Workers’ Day on May 1, the Iranian regime prevented Kurdish activists and organizations from holding protests against labor conditions. In Sanandaj, Iranian security forces transferred a Kurdish labor activist, Zaniar Dabagian, to prison after he was previously sentenced to one year in prison for “propaganda against the government.”
- In several cities of Iranian Kurdistan, teachers protested against workplace conditions and the Iranian regime’s plan to privatize some public schools. The protests took place in Kermanshah, Marivan, Sanandaj, Saqqaz, Urmia, and Kamyaran.
Iraq
- A senior delegation from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) visited Sulaymaniyah and signed an agreement with the Patriotic Union Party (PUK) to form a new Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The KDP delegation also held a meeting with the Change Movement (Gorran), who finished third in the 2018 KRG election, to finalize the agreement. After the three-way agreement between the KDP, PUK, and Gorran, the Kurdistan Parliament will hold a session to amend the presidential laws and elect a new PUK Speaker of the Parliament if the PUK finalizes their nominee. Once the presidential laws are amended, lawmakers will vote for the KDP presidential nominee Nechirvan Barzani. The president will then name a prime minister, Masrour Barzani of the KDP, to form the cabinet. The Kurdish parties aim to form the new KRG by end of May. Though parliamentary elections took place in September of 2018, the parties could not reach an agreement until Sunday. A three-way meeting between KDP, PUK, and Gorran will take place to establish the new cabinet for the next four years.
Syria
- The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria held a Syrian tribal forum in which 5000 community and tribal leaders from northern and eastern Syria participated. The forum took place on May 3 in Ain al Essa, near Raqqa. The forum concluded with a statement identifying its aims, which include the unity of Syria’s soil and sovereignty of its people, ending the Turkish occupation of the Syrian regions of Jarablus, Azaz, al-Bab and Idlib, and the liberation of Afrin and safe and return of its people. The forum aimed to unite the communities under the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) following the Assad regime’s attempts to reach separate agreements with some of the tribal leaders in the region. After the forum, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the U.S. and its Kurdish allies of trying to establish a quasi-state east of the Euphrates river. Meanwhile, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) thanked the forum’s participants and considered it a successful event.
- Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay revealed plans between Turkey and Russia to deploy a joint military force in the Syrian border region of Tel Rifaat, which the U.S.-backed SDF cleared of the Islamic State (Da’esh) in 2016. The move is similar to a previous arrangement where Turkey invaded the Kurdish region of Afrin after receiving Russian permission in 2018. The Turkish military has recently increased attacks on SDF controlled towns along the Syrian-Turkish border, especially in the vicinity of Tal Abyad (Giri Spi).
- The SDF returned 27 Yazidi Kurds abducted in Sjingal by Da’esh in 2014 to their homes after liberating them during the Battle of Baghouz. The Yazidis included 14 women and 13 children. The fate of hundreds of other missing Yazidis remains unclear despite the territorial defeat of Da’esh in Syria and Iraq. Meanwhile, the SDF continued clearing Baghouz of mines planted by Da’esh prior to their surrender.
Turkey
- Turkish authorities allowed imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan’s lawyers to visit him on May 2. This was after Ocalan’s attorneys filed over 700 applications requesting a meeting with their client from 2011-2019. On May 6, the lawyers held a press conference and released a letter on behalf of Ocalan and three other Kurds incarcerated in Turkey’s Imrali Prison. The letter urges the SDF to “solve the issues in Syria by refraining from conflict culture and within the perspective of local democracy guaranteed by the Constitution in the framework of Syria’s unity.” The letter also urges the SDF to take “Turkey’s concerns” into account. As the hunger strikes led by Kurdish lawmakers and activists continue, Ocalan’s letter calls upon strikers to “not take it to the level to threaten their health or result in deaths.” The letter also stresses that the peace process between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkey can be advanced by following Ocalan’s 2013 proposal.
- Kurdish hunger strikes in Turkey and Europe reached 181 days. The strikers demand an end to the isolation of Ocalan and political prisoners in Turkey. Despite Ocalan’s calls to consider the health of the strikers, many, especially the political prisoners, are liable to continue their strikes. The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) called for the international community to break its silence, as 15 political prisoners are now on “death fast.” Meanwhile, the Turkish police detained around 40 people, mostly mothers of political prisoners, protesting outside prisons in several Turkish cities and demanding the government end the isolation of their sons and daughters.