The focus of repression in northwest Iran is political
Kurdish autonomy in Syria and Iraq is a concern for Tehran
The killing of Mahsa Amini ignited the anger of the Iranian Kurds by restricting them.
From the source
Mahsa Amini has become a symbol of trouble for the Iranian leadership.
Reuters
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Facing the biggest challenge in years, Iran's religious leaders are trying to portray the angry protests linked to Mahsa Amini's death as a separatist uprising by the Kurds that threatens the unity of the nation rather than clerical rule.
Amini, 22, a Kurdish woman from the Kurdistan region in northwestern Iran, died after being detained by the Islamic Republic's morality police for violating strict rules requiring women to dress modestly in public.
The protests, which began at Amini's funeral in her Kurdish hometown of Saqqaz, quickly spread across the country, reaching the capital, Tehran, and cities in central Iran, and in the southwest and southeast of the country, where Arab and Baluchi minorities are concentrated.
Across the country, including in universities and high schools, the protesters' cry of "Women, life, freedom" and the same calls for the overthrow of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have spread, yet the crackdown by security forces has focused on the northwest, where most of Iran's estimated Kurds live. Their number is 10 million.
Witnesses said that anti-riot police and Basij forces were transferred to the area from other provinces, and tanks were sent to Kurdish areas, where tensions have been particularly high.
attack iraq
Tehran has attacked Iranian Kurdish armed groups in neighboring Iraq, saying they are involved in the unrest.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards fired missiles and drones at militant targets in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, where authorities said 13 people were killed.
A hardline security official said: "Kurdish opposition groups are using the Amini case as a pretext to achieve their decades-old goal of separating Kurdistan from Iran, but it will not succeed."
A former official echoed the same comments, telling Reuters: "Senior security officials are concerned that Kurdish opposition groups will use the support Kurds are getting from across Iran to press for independence."
Iranian state media described the protests that swept the country as a "political conspiracy" sparked by Kurdish separatist groups, especially the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran.
separatist threat
“Since the beginning of the uprising, the regime has tried to portray it as an ethnic Kurdish issue, not a national one,” said Ali Fathollah Nejad, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, referring to a separatist threat from the Kurdish region.
He added that "the great solidarity between the various ethnic groups in Iran during the nationwide protests undermined the efforts of the authorities."
However, looking across its borders at the situation in Iraq, and further west in Syria, Iranian authorities can suggest that Kurdish aspirations for autonomy take hold when the central government is challenged.
In Iraq, the Kurds who had fought Saddam Hussein's regime for years received enough Western military protection after the 1991 Gulf War to have a degree of autonomy.
The level of autonomy was enhanced 12 years after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam.
Taking advantage of the turmoil sparked by the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, Syrian Kurdish forces allied themselves with the United States against ISIS to establish control over an area of northeastern Syria.
In Turkey, where Kurds make up about a fifth of the population of 85 million people, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants have waged an armed insurgency against the state since 1984 in which tens of thousands have been killed.
The Kurds in Iraq and Syria went out in demonstrations in solidarity with the protesters in Iran.
In Turkey, the deputy leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) told Reuters that the party "salutes women in Iran" and advocates for their rights.
"As is the case in Turkey, Iraq and Syria, the Kurds in Iran are the ones who seek democracy, and the Kurds are the ones who seek freedom," said Tuncer Bakirhan, a former mayor who was sacked and arrested on charges of links to militants.
The Iranian constitution guarantees equal rights to all ethnic minorities, and allows the use of minority languages in the media and schools.
But rights groups and activists say the Kurds face discrimination, as do other religious and ethnic minorities, under Shiite religious rule in the country.
Amnesty International said that "dozens, if not hundreds" of political prisoners affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran and other banned political parties are languishing in prison after being convicted in unfair trials.
"The regime has never recognized the rights of the Kurdish population," said Hewa Mulanya, an Iranian Kurdish journalist based in Turkey.
Despite these constraints at home, and the two models of Kurdish autonomy in Iraq and Syria, many Iranian Kurds insist they do not seek secession.
"Iranian Kurds want their constitutional rights to be respected...People in the Kurdistan region want regime change, not independence," said Kafeh Jerishi, an Iranian Kurdish journalist and researcher.
Ali Vaez, an expert on Iran at the International Crisis Group, said the accusations of Kurdish separatist ambitions aimed to create a "national rally" that would encourage Iranians to support the leadership, not the protesters.
However, the real danger lies not in any separatist ambitions of Iranian minorities, but rather in the Iranian leadership's treatment of these minorities.
• The great solidarity between the various ethnic groups in Iran during the nationwide protests undermined the efforts of the authorities.
• The Iranian constitution guarantees equal rights for all ethnic minorities, and allows the use of minority languages in the media and schools.
• Witnesses said that anti-riot police and Basij forces were transferred to the area from other governorates, and tanks were sent to Kurdish areas, where tensions have particularly escalated.
• Senior security officials are concerned that "Kurdish opposition groups will use the support the Kurds are getting from across Iran, to press for independence."
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