Persecution of the Kurds

In Turkey, assimilationist policies toward the Kurds were particularly intense. The Turkish government, seeking to create a unified nation-state, banned the use of the Kurdish language and erased Kurdish identity from public space. It even introduced the term “Turkish Highlander” to cut the Kurds off from their ethnic roots. Numerous Kurdish uprisings, such as Sheikh Said’s uprising in 1925, were brutally suppressed, and Kurds were often subjected to mass repression and displacement. For decades, the situation for Kurds in Turkey was tense, and any attempt to seek autonomy was met with repression. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was founded and launched an armed struggle for autonomy for the Kurds. The conflict between the PKK and the Turkish government has led to brutal repression by the army, the destruction of many villages, and the displacement of millions of Kurds in the southeastern Turkish region.

In Iran, the Kurds have also been subjected to repression, especially after the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Although earlier attempts at Kurdish autonomy, such as the short-lived Mahabad Republic in 1946, had their place, they were quickly destroyed by the Iranian military. To this day, the Iranian authorities treat the Kurds as a threat to the integrity of the state, and any Kurdish national movement is severely suppressed. Kurdish activists and leaders often fall victim to persecution, and organizations fighting for Kurdish rights are regularly smashed by the authorities. In Iran, as in Turkey, Kurdish culture has been marginalized, and Kurdish aspirations for autonomy have been considered a threat to public order.

The history of the persecution of the Kurds in Iraq is one of the most dramatic. In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein’s government conducted the “Al-Anfal” campaign, targeting Kurds in northern Iraq. The campaign included massive ethnic cleansing, chemical bombing and brutal repression, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Kurds. The most notorious case was the use of chemical weapons on the city of Halabja in 1988, where more than 5,000 civilians were killed. After the end of the Gulf War in 1991, the Kurds gained some level of autonomy thanks to international support. Nonetheless, their situation was difficult, and their attempts at full independence are still subject to tensions with the Iraqi government today.

In Syria, Kurds have been considered second-class citizens for years. In the 1960s, the government revoked the citizenship of tens of thousands of Kurds, depriving them of basic rights. Kurdish culture and language were systematically suppressed, and any expression of Kurdish identity was treated as an expression of separatism. The situation of the Kurds changed somewhat after the outbreak of the civil war in 2011, when they managed to take control of the northern areas of Syria, creating Rojava, an autonomous enclave. However, fighting and conflicts with various forces in Syria and external interventions, including Turkish offensives, make their situation unstable and their autonomous structures under threat.