Peace in Kurdistan Campaign issued a statement in solidarity with the women of Iran and Rojhilat and all who are resisting the repressive theocratic regime in the wake of the killing of Mahsa Amini.

The statement said: "Protests have erupted across Iran and throughout the world in response to the death in police custody of the 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini in Tehran.

Mahsa was not involved in political activities at the time of her arrest. She was not protesting against the Iranian regime. She was not involved in any illegal activity whatsoever. She was simply visiting the capital with her family and minding her own business when she was picked up and arrested by members of the country’s morality police. Mahsa Amini’s only crime was to be deemed to be wearing her hijab in a fashion that was not in keeping with strict government-imposed dress code.

She was immediately detained, where she was allegedly beaten severely and tortured in circumstances that are far from clear. She suffered a fractured skull and died of the injuries she had sustained. Iranian officials dispute the details of her death, but the irrefutable fact remains that she died and in dying she has become the latest victim of a widely hated and repressive regime."

The statement added: "What began as a protest in response to the brutal death of this one young woman has rapidly grown into a mass social movement which has within it the capacity to shake the very foundations of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Kurds in particular have long been at the receiving end of the regime’s repression and the fact that Mahsa Amini was from Kurdistan adds a specific significance to her death for the Kurdish people who have bravely resisted Iran’s theocratic rulers for many decades.  

More than 40 people have died inside Iran, including children, since these recent protests began. Several hundreds more have been arrested as the movement gathers pace and as the regime reacts in the only way that it knows how – with more repression and a savage clampdown.

Outrage at the death of Mahsa Amini has thus ignited a wider popular resistance that embraces men, women, youth, Iranians, Kurds, all ethnic communities and different social groups united against a regime that resorts to repression against even the smallest signs of dissent."

Peace in Kurdistan said it stands "full square in solidarity with all the brave women of Iran who are protesting inside the country and around the world.

In this growing resistance that is building in the wake of Mahsa’s killing, a new society is in the process of being born. While the demise of theocratic rule may not yet be imminent, its final days come ever closer as the deaths mount and the torture victims increase. 

The days are numbered for any regime that fails to address the true social demands of its people and no group can maintain its grip on power indefinitely through use of coercion alone. The growing protest movement all over Iran marks the beginnings of the end for the Islamic Republic and the birth of a new society."

The statement continued: "A future Iran for which the Kurds and others are struggling can only be founded on the basis of the free development of all the peoples who live within that country and who share its lands. Full equality of men and women, as Abdullah Ocalan has consistently argued, is an essential prerequisite for the building of the new society in Kurdistan and across the Middle East. The hopes and aspirations of those risking their lives to challenge the regime in Tehran today represent this emerging future where the rights of all peoples, men and women alike, will be fully respected. 

Women are at the forefront of this historic struggle that is rapidly developing into an unstoppable force that will see the sweeping away of all the hated theocracies, along with their archaic rules and antediluvian codes.  As inevitably as day follows night, the people will prevail."