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2022, The Jerusalem Post
This article highlights the fact that Mahsa Amini, the woman whose death sparked protests for woman, life and freedom, is Kurdish and her real name is Jina Aimini. It discusses why acknowledging her Kurdish name matters. It provides a break down of the cultural genocide and assimilation legacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in regards to the Kurds and other ethnic communities living in Iran.
IAI Papers 22/26
A Regime Unveiled Social and Ethno-Sectarian Tensions and Democratic Evolution in Iran2022 •
Since mid-September 2022 Iran has faced a wave of countrywide protests from Iranians throughout the society. Protesters demand justice against police violence and an end to discrimination of women, Sunnis and ethnic groups. The protests are home-grown and spontaneous and show no sign to abate. The clerical regime is left with two equally problematic choices. A brutal clamp-down would risk transforming the protests into ethno-sectarian strife, which would stymie the country for a generation. Alternatively, the Islamic Republic's leadership could give in and start a political reform process which however would go against the interests and identity of its core followers.
Studies of Transition States and Societies
Contested Notions of National Identity, Ethnic Movements And Democratization in Iran2016 •
Since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, successive regimes in Iran promoted competing conceptions of Iranian national identity. However, the policy of promoting nationalism as a state-sponsored ideology that excludes Iran’s ethnic and religious diversity remained unchanged. Competing discourses around nation building and identity strikingly intersect with the struggle for democratization in Iran. Since the Islamic Revolution, the pro-democracy movement in the country takes place on two fronts: the confrontation between the conservatives and the reformists, and the challenge posed by the ethnic movements towards the official denial of the ethnic and religious diversity of Iran. This article argues that be they reformist or conservative, successive governments in Iran have refused to recognize the multi-ethnic structure of Iranian society and the legitimate rights of the ethnic groups. Therefore, a regime change would be unlikely to alter the social and political status of ethnic...
ACCORD - Austrian Centre for Country of Origin & Asylum Research and Documentation
Red Cross and situation in Iran2013 •
This report serves the specific purpose of collating legally relevant information on conditions in countries of origin pertinent to the assessment of claims for asylum. It is not intended to be a general report on human rights conditions. The report is prepared on the basis of publicly available information, studies and commentaries within a specified time frame. All sources are cited and fully referenced.
2019 •
In this paper, I illustrate that the people of Iran do not "enjoy equal [language] rights". Indeed, whereas Persian as the language of about 50% of the population is declared official, other languages have been marginalized and excluded from some of the most important domains within which languages can thrive, develop, and be validated, e.g., education and public administration. Despite Article 15 of the same constitution, which acknowledges Iran as a multilingual society, and 'allows' for the use of minoritized languages in the teaching of their literature and 'ethnic media', Persianization of the country remains the official language policy.
Religion & Ethics, ABC News
Kurdistan in Tehran: What the murder of Jina Amini means for the future of Iran2022 •
The brutal beating of Jina (Mahsa) Amini for not wearing the “proper hijab” and her subsequent murder by the Iranian regime’s “morality police” have dominated the frontpage of newspapers and news sites throughout the world. What was not mentioned in the initial reporting was her true ethnic identity. The victim was not Persian; she was Kurdish, from Eastern Kurdistan (Rojhelat), in Tehran on a visit. She dressed modestly, even conservatively by most standards in the modern world, including the Middle East. Jina Amini was as brave in her own way as the Kurdish female soldiers who defeated the fanatics of Da’esh on the Syrian battlefields. What happened to her is not “religion”; it is perversion. If such an action is condoned and carried out systematically, that is the word that best characterises the regime in Tehran. Her death could precipitate major changes for the Kurds in Eastern Kurdistan, as well as for Iranian citizens in general.
2019 •
Since the late 19th century, despite multi-cultural and multilingual composition of Iranian population, Persian nationalism has functioned as the ideology of the state. Persian intelligentsia have formulated a set of historical and cultural referents that enabled them to present the Persian language and identity as primordial and all-inclusive of all Iranians. By the advent of the modern nation-state, during Pahlavi dynasty, the non-Persian identities were brutally repressed in favor of the “One Country, One Nation, and One Language” policy. Through the adoption of such a policy and with the help of Persian intellectual and literati classes, the state was able to impose Persian identity as the singular “Iranian identity” and systematically marginalize and criminalize the non-Persian identities, treating them as “manufactured ethnic identities.” Being declared as “manufactured,” non-Persian identities are consequently perceived as constant threats to the territorial integrity and ideological monologue of the sovereign. This paper, therefore, aims to critically reassess “Iranian identity” and its production of “internal colonized Other.” It argues that through such an “internal othering” that Persian nationalism, backed by the combined force of a military and “privileged epistemology” has generated and sustained “the process of internal colonization.”
Palgrave Macmillan
Ethnic Identity and the State in Iran2013 •
Tehran's complicated relationship with its ethnic sub-groups has been a pressing security concern since the formation of modern Iran in 1925. This concern is intimately linked with issues related to citizenship, democracy, and democratic political processes, which remain fundamental to Iran's political structure and the Iranian political sphere. This book argues that, while the Islamic Republic has employed various strategies to mitigate the worst excesses of inter-ethnic tension while still securing a Shi'a-Persian dominated state, the systematic neglect of ethnic groups by both the Islamic Republic and its predecessor regime has resulted in the politicization of ethnic identity in Iran.
The Iranian government is reluctant to specify the demographic distribution of ethno-religious groups in its census reports in order to keep the ethno-religious issues low profile. • The rigid official ideology in Iran leaves little room for diversity and pluralism. • Although Jews, Zoroastrians and Armenians are specified as the only recognized religious minorities in Iran’s Constitution, in practice, Sunnis constitute the largest religious minority since for Iran’s Shiite leadership, Islam is identical with Shi’ism. • Baha’i children are not only banned from studying in Iranian schools and universities, but they are also banned from acquiring education through any other means. • The ethnic policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is an extension of the pre-1979 revolutionary policies. • The post-monarchy revolutionary leaders, instead of abandoning the security-oriented assimilationist approach toward the ethnicities, have consolidated it by a religious discourse which is based on the denial of religious differences. • There is a trust deficit between the Shiite Persian dominated Iranian elites and the non-Shiite and non-Persian ethno-religious minorities in Iran.
International Journal of Kurdish Studies
Ethnicity and Identities in Iran: Progress and Equality2022 •
in Stansfield, Gareth and Shareef, Mohammed (ed.), The Kurdish Question Revisited, Hurst, London, pp. 319-330
Identities and Ethnic Hierarchy: The Kurdish Question in Iran since 1979 (2017)2017 •
John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University
Iran and Azerbaijani Identity Borders and Bretherns2002 •
The Kurdish Question Revisited
Iranian Kurds: Fellow Aryans and Muslim Brothers2017 •
2022 •
Journal of Political Ecology
The unequal vulnerability of Kurdish and Azeri minorities in the case of the degradation of Lake Urmia, IranKurdish Studies
The Kurdish victimization: A psycho-political Perspective2019 •
Journal of Current Anthropology
Silencing the Past Persian Archaeology, Race, Ethnicity, and Language2022 •
Conflict, Democratization, and the Kurds in the Middle East
Conflict, Democratization, and the Kurds in the Middle East2014 •
3 RD INTERNATIONAL KURDISH STUDIES CONFERENCE Shifting Dynamics of the Kurdistan Question in a Changing Middle East
The Narrative of Lesbian Gays and Bisexual (LGB) in Iran and the Chronic Closet2019 •