Activists fear massacre in the Kurdish city of Mahabad

For the past nine weeks, people in Iran have taken to the streets against the regime of the mullahs. But the powerful never think to give in.

Activists now fear a massacre could take place in the Kurdish city of Mahabad in western Iran, according to a report by “Bild”. Because: the protests are particularly strong there and are spreading more and more. And the army is cracking with all its might.

Neither electricity nor internet

Both the human rights organization Hengaw and the TV news channel “Iran International” have confirmed that security forces entered Mahabad on Saturday evening and brutally attacked civilians.

Half the city has no electricity and the internet is practically paralyzed. More and more videos are circulating on social media showing how both demonstrators and entire residential areas are being fired upon by security forces.

Violent violence against ethnic and religious minorities

Mahabad has a special history. In 1946, the city was the capital of the Republic of Kurdistan, a modern Kurdish state, for eleven months.

After the formation of a government, a parliament and failed negotiations between the Iranian government and the Kurds, Iranian forces invaded Mahabad and ended the republic.

Violence is particularly violent in Iran’s provinces home to ethnic and religious minorities. However, so far this has not stopped the protests. In Mahabad, women, men and teenagers voiced their displeasure and clamored for the “death of the dictator”.

Protests have already claimed 379 lives

According to the human rights organization Iran Human Rights, 379 people have already died in the protests, including 47 children.

The violent protests were prompted by the death of the Kurdish woman Masha Amini († 22), who was arrested in September by the Iranian moral police because she allegedly wore her headscarf in accordance with the rules. She died in hospital a short time later. (ceded)