PUBLIC FORUM: IRAN’S KURDS AT A CROSSROADS?INTERNATIONAL AND CROSS-BORDER STRATEGIES
The Centre for Kurdish Progress and the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) are pleased to invite you to a public forum titled ‘Iran’s Kurds at a Crossroads? – International and Cross-Border Strategies’. The event will take place in Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House, British Parliament, on 25 January 2016 between 7 and 9PM.
Keynote speakers are Mr Nasser Boladai, President of UNPO; Mr Abdullah Mohtadi, leader of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan; Mr Loghman Ahmedi, Head of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan's (PDKI) Foreign Relations and Dr Seevan Saeed of University of Exeter.
Mr Mustafa Hijri, General Secretary of the PDKI is now unable to attend due to travel arrangements. Mr Loghman Ahmedi will kindly speak on Mr Hijri's behalf in this debate.
The debate will bring together activists, representatives of Kurdish political parties, academics, British politicians and policy advisers, students and other interested parties. This event will analyse the situation of the Kurdish community in Iran, comparing it with that of the Kurdish communities of neighbouring countries, and look into possible ways to bring increased attention to Iranian Kurdistan, through cross-border and international strategies.
This event is kindly hosted by Mrs Emma Reynolds Labour MP for Wolverhampton North East.
Mr Gary Kent, Director of the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on the Kurdistan Region, will chair this forum.
Especially after 1979 revolution, the Kurds in Iran have faced extreme repression and a wide range of injustices, including systematic economic, social and political disadvantage, forced assimilation policies and discrimination by Iranian authorities. In the light of recent events in the Middle East, the Kurds living in Iraq, Syria and Turkey have received increased attention by European media. However, the voice of Iran’s over 8 million Kurds remains unheard – a consequence of Iran’s relative isolation from international affairs and the delicacy surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme and the international negotiations on the subject.
The recently concluded nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1, is opening Iran to increased economic and political relations. This may offer an opportunity for greater awareness of the situation of the country’s minorities, and open new avenues for international engagement and cross-border cooperation. However, the fact that Iran’s human rights situation was not taken into account during the negotiations is extremely worrying and these increased relations, as well as the economic development that will follow, will be more difficult for the minorities to enjoy and could even be seen as legitimising the status quo. In this heated context, the conference will seek to explore the possible ways to strengthen the domestic and international visibility of Eastern Kurdistan, as well as to discuss how different political groups can work together with other Iranian minorities for a democratization of the country.
Speaker Biographies
Mr Nasser Boladai currently holds the UNPO Presidency seat and is the spokesperson of Congress of Nationalities for a Federal Iran (CNFI) and Balochistan People’s Party (BPP). Born and raised in Western Balochistan, Iran, Mr Boladai is a member of the editorial board of the Baloch and Persian magazine, TRAN, where he continuously contributes to numerous articles on national self-determination, public sovereignty, federalism as well as Baloch language and literature.
Mr Abdullah Mohtadi, leader of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, a major political force for about four decades, was born in 1949 in Iranian Kurdistan. His father was a minister in the short-lived Kurdish Republic of Mahabad in 1946. He received his BA in business administration in Teheran. With some of his fellow Kurdish students, he co-founded the Komala organization in 1969 as an independent leftist party. Komala proved to be a coherent and resilient organization with a broad network of political activists which survived the Shah's persecutions and harsh treatment of the opposition in the seventies and later flourished as a non-traditionalist urban based political party all over Iranian Kurdistan. Mohtadi himself was arrested three times under the Shah (and later once under Khomeini) and has spent over three years in jail as a political prisoner. When eventually Ayatollah Khomeini ordered a massive onslaught against Iranian Kurds in August 1979, Abdullah Mohtadi emerged as one of the leaders of the Kurdish resistance movement. Some months later, when the Islamic Regime of Iran, under pressure by the Kurdish resistance, decided to negotiate with the Kurds, Mohtadi was appointed head of Komala team in the United Kurdish Delegation and actively took part in the negotiations. Mohtadi stands for a democratic, pluralist and non-centralist Iran that lives in peace with its diverse cultural, linguistic, religious and ethnic population, its neighbours and the world. A well-known figure among Iranian opposition, Abdullah Mohtadi in currently the leader of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan.
Mr Loghman was born in the town of Divandereh, Iranian Kurdistan. He has studied International Relations and Political Science at the University of Stockholm. Ahmedi has written extensively on Kurdish and Iranian politics, Iranian foreign policy, Iran’s nuclear program, Iran’s role in the region, and national and religious diversity in Iran. He has also written research papers on Iran’s relationship with the European Union and the United States. In 2008 Ahmedi was elected into the leadership of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI). He was re-elected into PDKI leadership in 2012 and currently heads the party’s foreign relations. Ahmedi has addressed and briefed the United Nations, the European Union and numerous governments and international organisations on the Kurdish political situation in Iran.
Dr Seevan Saeed is an independent junior Kurdish academic, originally from east part of Kurdistan. He studied primary and secondary school in the compulsory camp near Sulemani and received his BA degree in sociology in Salahadin University in Arbil-Kurdistan. In 2001, he arrived in the UK as a refugee and settled down in Wolverhampton ever since. After learning English language in the first few years, between 2004-2008, he received another BA and MA degrees in Sociology at the University of Wolverhampton. Dr Saeed received his PhD in Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter in 2014. He has delivered lecturers in domestic and international universities. He worked as a Human Rights activist and managed projects within NGOs in the Middle East between 2008 and 2010. Dr Saeed has published articles in three languages and participated in national and international conferences about the Kurdish question and Middle East issues. His last book, titled 'Kurdish National Movement in Turkey' will be published in the UK in 2016.
When:
January 25, 2016 at 7pm - 9pm
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