Iranian girl dies after setting herself on fire in protest over hijab In a school in western Iran, a 14-year-old Kurdish girl died after setting herself on fire in protest over her right not to wear the hijab headdress. The story nearly brings Iranian Kurd Kawa Kohnaposhe to tears. He escaped Kurdistan in 2000 after twice being arrested and tortured for supporting the Democratic Party of Kurdistan. He fled to Turkey, obtained false documents and eventually arrived in Sheffield via London and Coventry. Meanwhile, the girl began to question certain details of Islam and refused to wear the hijab. She was detained after school and after months of torment she decided to end her life. Kawa never had the chance to say goodbye to the 14-year-old girl, his sister, Soma. "I only had one sister. She was only 14 when she died. I never said goodbye to her and that has left me with a pain in my heart that won't go away. It will be with me forever," said Kawa, speaking at his Burngreave flat. Kawa, aged 26, had little choice but to leave behind the oppression of Kurdistan after his every move became tracked by the Iranian intelligence service. ... No Kurdish resident can have a Kurdish name. They cannot study their own language, celebrate their own festivals or even display their own flag. Those who do are captured and tortured.
Asylum applications are notorious for stretching the "truth". The very fact that the report says that in Iran you can't study your own language, be it Kurdish otherwise (totally false), throws on doubt on the rest of the story. You certainly can study the Kurdish language in Iran; indeed, there are newspapers in Iranian Kurdistan that print in Kurdish and schools that teach Kurdish. Being a member of a militant organization such as the KDP is illegal. That is about all in that report that would stand scrutiny. There is a lot of effort to forment a popular uprising among the Kurds in Iran as well as the Arabs in Khuzistan. Both attempts, notwithstanding what some groups might tell you, have been dismal failures. The extent of the failure, given some of the grievances that can be fueled, has been even surprising to me. Anyway, I truly hope no 14 year old has self emulated. I do know that some members of the terrorist cult MEK self emulated when their group's office was being searched and closed in some European capitals.
You're just mad because there's no video. OR, for the less literate. Your jus' mad 'cause their's no pitcher. edit: Damn it Chad, cut that out!!
All my posts here are "rough drafts". Mistakes can be found in them. Especially phonetic ones. In this case, another factor is that I don't usually talk about self immolation. I don't believe the story. There are teenagers in Iran who commit suicide. But the notion it was done for Hejab rules is highly unlikely. But the facts don't matter; there will many people who will like the story regardless. I am, incidentally, familiar with how asylum applications work. There are people who want to immigrate and will come up with stories that would make their applications more likely to find approval. In the US, it used to be rather easy to get an asylum if you were from Iran. In the early years of the revolution, establishing a "well founded fear of persecution" was not that tough. Even if you really didn't fear persecution per se. The same is not true today. Although media reports like this one will help. Even if the application on its face has clearly erroneous allegations.
Both under Iran's constitution and in practice, all minority groups are allowed to learn their own language. There is no such prohibition in Iran. There is also no prohibition on having a Kurdish name! That is preposterous on its face. Anyway, here is a report which I post to highlight how even Kurdish activists in Iran are concerned about militant groups. Groups that I might add are being supported by outsiders.
BTW, this snipet from the same report should throw some light on the tactics that were being used to forment trouble among Iranian Kurds. As you might recall from Ben's several threads citing less than reputable sources, this is an effort that was going on for several months. At the end, these folks seeking to cause problems had to mutilate the body of an armed activist killed in a gun battle with the police and make up a story to even have a few thousands Kurds get angry and protest. Since Iran's government had a picture of the body of the guy when it was delivered to his family, and those pictures showed none of the signs of torture that the pictures shown by the Kurdish activists showed, it was kind of clear who was behind mutilating the body as well. Another sad part is how Human Rights Watch has simply become a mouthpiece for the propaganda war against Iran waged ironically by their nemesis at home, i.e. the neocons.