After the takeover of the Shiite political elite with the Islamic-nationalist ideological orientation in 1979 until today, oppression, assimilation, torture, executions and murders have been a major part of the lives of the political activists, and the ethnic and religious minorities.

The Kurdish people have always been an important element in the fight for democracy and the realization of universal human values and standards in Iran.

In recent years and after a long political vacuum in Iran and Eastern Kurdistan, students, women activists and teachers in the Kurdish region have played a leading role in the country. All these above-mentioned social groups have had leading roles in the oppositional stance against the rulers of the country on the issue of democracy and freedom.
The answer from the current regime with their oppressed institutions such as the Revolutionary Guards has been to revolutionize the increased militarization of the Kurdish area, hindering the entry of any Kurdish magazines and imprisoning journalists and school teachers as well as students.

A hunger strike started on August 25, 2008, by Kurdish political dissidents and prisoners and has today reached its 45th day. The hunger strike is concurrently held in the prisons of Tehran, Mariwan, Sine, Mako, Urmye, Saghez, Mahabad and Mako.


The hunger strike is a stand against the Iranian Islamic Republic's undemocratic policies, the prison situation, the country's legal system and lack of human rights as well as torture and the death penalty in the country.

In the first press release from the prisoners, the hunger strike is described as an attempt to reach out of the prison walls and to the outside world with its political will and to show the fight carried on for democracy and freedom.

45 days of struggle has passed for the prisoners but the Islamist regime has yet not met the democratic rights as the prisoners are fighting for. This of anything is a testimony to the rulers and the outside world about the determination and the struggle of the Kurdish people for democracy and human rights in the country.

Moreover the hunger strike has managed to transform the regime's dark prisons into platforms for unity and resistance against the regime's undemocratic methods.

The hunger strike has also succeeded in shedding light on the prisoners' situation, the existing policy, the non-profit organizations, activists and especially women activists in the Iranian regime's prisons and it has also led to an update on the Kurdish issue and the situation of the other ethnicities in the country, while the whole world is busy with the nuclear issue and the financial crisis.

We hereby urge the Kurdish prisoners to end the hunger strike as we see that it has fulfilled its purpose of emphasizing the situation of the prisoners in the Iranian prisons and the otherwise cruel treatment that the prisoners are subjected to, as well as the prisoner's determination to continue with the hunger strike on an unlimited basis.

Shamal Bishir

When President Obama announced his new vision for diplomacy and identified himself a “Citizen of the world,” oppressed people from around the world welcomed the opportunity presented by the first US President who was perceived to have a deeper understanding of human suffering and the cruel policies of oppression still practiced in some parts of the world including Kurdistan under Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.

We are the undersigned organizations, urge you to take immediate action to help save the lives of Kurdish Prisoners on hunger strike in Iran and to ask the Iranian authorities to comply with the hunger strikers demands for humane and decent treatment, in accordance with internationally recognized standards of human rights and international law.

Amendments to a law punishing insults to Turkish identity which the Turkish parliament adopted on 30 April are "cosmetic and insufficient," Reporters Without Borders said today. Dozens of writers and journalists have been convicted under the law, article 301 of the criminal code, since its introduction in 2005.

As four more rockets thumped into buildings in the Baghdad Green Zone on Tuesday, it became devastatingly clear that promises made by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his trip to Iraq in early March were worthless. According to reports, two of the rockets landed in Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki's compound but mercifully there were no deaths or serious injuries.

The fact that PKK is a movement of a nation which emerged deep inside the Kurdish elite is not a matter of denial, however it is clear for many people who familiar with the Kurdish issue that PKK appeared and developed as a result of historical necessity in the certain period of the time and its aim and goal has been also well-defined for these whom blind-folded their eyes in the reality of Kurdish people for many years.