Cultural Genocide and the Kurdish Struggle in Iran
- Genocide Watch
- 32 minutes ago
- 2 min read
By Michał Jagielski
The Kurds, along with other ethnic minorities in Iran, have been suffering from systemic attempts by the state to limit their autonomy and forcefully assimilate them into the dominant Iranian culture. Any attempts by the Kurdish civil society to express their grievances and participate in peaceful movements have been met with violent crackdowns.
Politically, the state has outlawed Kurdish political groups and actively punishes civilians for their lawful civil and political dissent. In recent years, Tehran has used domestic and international events as an excuse to further oppress the Kurds. By arresting civilians and community leaders, it aims to strip civil society of its tools to exercise its will. Socially, it has enforced its political, religious, and cultural vision on ethnic minorities, disregarding their right to cultural expression. Culturally, it criminalized the use of the Kurdish language, banned Kurdish symbols from the public sphere, and actively denied the contributions made by Kurds to the history and culture of the region. Economically, it has intentionally underdeveloped the provinces inhabited by Kurds, exploited the region’s natural resources, and put up bureaucratic hurdles, forcing the locals to work in perilous environments to survive. Physically, it engages in arbitrary arrests, torture, surveillance, and hands out death penalties on an unimaginable scale.
When all of Iran’s actions are taken into account, it is clear that its objective is to “menace the existence of the social group which exists by virtue of its common culture” to create a favorable status quo for the dominant group. In this light, Iran’s campaign against the Kurds can be understood as a form of cultural genocide, a sustained effort to erase a people by extinguishing the social, political, and cultural foundations that sustain them.
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