Say Her Name: Kurdish Erasure in Iran’s Protests

By Ilina Krishen

“[T]here's really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.' There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”[1]

The death of Jina 'Mahsa' Amini, a young Iranian Kurdish woman, at the hands of Iran's morality police sparked nationwide protests and has put an international spotlight on the plight of Iranian women. Popular narratives around Amini’s death solely focus on her death after being arrested by the so-called guidance patrol, Islamic religious police, for not wearing the hijab in accordance with government standards.[2] However, narratives around Amini’s death and the ensuing mass protests erase the crucial fact that Amini was Kurdish.[3] Further examination of Amini’s death, policing of women’s bodies, and women’s freedom in Iran must place much needed attention towards Iran's long-oppressed Kurdish minority.[4]

Nationwide demonstrations began in north-western Iran, where Kurds make up about ten percent of the Iranian population, before quickly spreading to the rest of the country.[5] Protesters in Kurdistan and throughout Iran have been heard chanting “Women, life, and freedom” (or Jin Jîyan Azadî in Kurdish).[6] The slogan serves as a demand for women’s liberation emerging from the Kurdish Freedom Movement, which has turned into the protest movement’s motto alongside “Death to the dictator” and other anti-regime slogans.[7] Regardless of whether Amini’s Kurdish identity played a significant role in the detention and brutal violence that led to her death, understating her ethnic origin reproduces colonial politics of the Iranian regime towards the Kurdish people.[8]

This erasure is present from the reporting of Amini’s name in mass media and in protest chants that often echo the phrase “Say her name!” Reports around Amini’s death report her official Iranian name, Mahsa Amini, as opposed to Jina, her Kurdish name.[9] Iranian state discrimination against Kurds includes a widespread ban of Kurdish names, which forces many families to register their children officially with non-Kurdish names. At the same time, Kurdish families maintain their actual names at home.[10] This in turn fragments the experience of many Kurds and creates an ‘official-legal’ and an ‘unofficial-illegal’ identity. Being forced to adopt and identify by a name that is not representative of your roots forces ethnic cultural erasure. The authentic ethnic-cultural identity loses its validity and a name that says nothing about your roots identifies you. Some people that insist on calling Jîna Amini by her state-approved name Mahsa argue that she did not lose her life under detention because she was Kurdish, but only because she was a woman. Therefore, according to the argument, it is not necessary or significant to call her by her Kurdish name.

Kurds are an Aryan people and an ethnic group distinct from the Turks, Persians, and Arabs — although the majority of Kurds share the Islamic faith of those populations.[11] The Kurdish language, customs, traditions, and internal tribal structures are also distinct.[12] The Kurds are one of the world’s largest peoples without a state, making up sizable minorities in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.[13] Numbering roughly 30 million, the Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without a state.[14] Instead, they have been incorporated as minority populations within the larger surrounding states. Their century-old quest for independence is marked by marginalization and persecution. Minority Kurds residing within Iran, who are mainly Sunni Muslims in Shi'ite-dominated Iran, speak a distinct language.[15] The lands on which the Kurdish people have historically resided on, known as Kurdistan, stretch across 74,000 square miles that encompasses modern day southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syria. [16] Kurds in Iran form about ten percent of the population and face discrimination under Iran’s Shi’ite clerical establishment, along with other numerous religious and ethnic minorities.[17]

Jîna Amini died after contact with Iran’s ‘morality police,’ prompting worldwide protests in her name. Courtesy Reuters.

Throughout modern history, Iranian governments have suppressed the Kurdish national movement through similar policies as other states with Kurdish communities, including forced assimilation, denial of Kurdish identity, and terrorizing the population. Kurdish provinces are among the most deprived in Iran, have some of the highest unemployment rates, and have limited access to basic services. The Iranian state's economic and development policies in Kurdistan are known to be exploitative.[18] The discriminatory gozinesh system — a selection procedure that requires prospective state officials and employees to demonstrate allegiance to Islam and the Islamic Republic of Iran — denies Kurds equality in employment and political participation.[19] In addition, the UN Special Rapporteur drew attention to the disproportionately poor housing and living conditions of minority communities, noting the discriminatory nature and impact of forced evictions and expropriation of rural land for large-scale agricultural plantations or petrochemical plants.[20] Kurds have faced decades of challenges related to housing that range from the destruction of Kurdish villages during the Iran-Iraq war to recent state neglect and forced eviction.[21]

Mainly Sunni Muslims in Shia-dominated Iran, Kurds represent the largest oppressed group under the Islamic Republic today and the monarchy before it.[22] Kurds form nearly half of political prisoners in the country despite being a small portion of the population.[23] Activists are often sentenced to many years in prison, and those who take part in demonstrations receive severe penalties.[24] Kurdish human rights defenders, community activists, and journalists face arbitrary arrest and prosecution.[25] Kurdish language publications and cultural activities are restricted, teaching the Kurdish language is prohibited, and the use of Kurdish names is banned in many cases.[26]

Kurdish women and other women of minority groups in Iran face a double jeopardy when interacting with the Iranian state structure. Many Persian protestors’ asserted aim is to free women from being required to wear thehijab and reinstate rights deprived by the Iranian government.[27] Yet many of the nation’s minorities — including Kurds and the Baloch, who are concentrated in Iran’s southern provinces — believe they would face the same oppression that they currently face under the current regime.[28] Ensuring women's agency in Iran will not guarantee complete freedom for Kurdish women. They will remain among a marginalized population, from which the Kurdish community will continue to suffer.  

The extent and prevalence of violence against women in the Kurdish regions of Iran is impossible to quantify (many international and national organizations do not have effective access to all Kurdish areas). It is clear, however, that discrimination and violence against women and girls in the Kurdish regions is both pervasive and widely tolerated.[29] As a result, police and judicial officials are often unwilling to arrest and prosecute perpetrators of violence against women in Kurdish areas. Even if women in Iran are liberated from the obligation to wear a headscarf, Kurdish women will not automatically be afforded the same rights and advantages of their Persian counterparts.[30]

While the protests in Iran are viewed internationally as a gender movement, for the minorities who started them, they represent something different. During the first fifteen days of 2023, according to Hengsaw, at least ninety-six citizens have been arrested, including thirteen children. The regime has also evoked an old trope: Portraying Kurds as conniving actors working for foreign governments like the United States to destabilize Iran.[31]

We need to look at the core of what is unjust in the Iranian system. Kurdish and minority women have the same fear: They will be erased and forgotten from these protests and their oppression will continue. Since the protests erupted, hundreds — possibly thousands — of Iranian Kurds are thought to have fled their homes in the heavily-repressed Kurdistan province of Iran to neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan. But Kurds continue to live in fear of the Iranian regime's reach and lack any protection or humanitarian support.[32]

The Kurds have been the victims of both dehumanization through regime-perpetrated violence and infantilization by the constant denial of self-rule.[33] They have been the victims of involuntarily property takings from physical structures, ancestral land attached to their cultural identity, and the denial of self-ownership.[34] Amini’s death has seen Kurdish slogans calling for women’s liberation and revolution echo around the world. “Jin, jiyan, azadî” — and its translations — has echoed through protests held in her Iranian name and demonstrations held in solidarity with freedom-seeking women in Iran.[35] “Jin, jiyan, azadî” is rooted in women’s liberation movements emerging from the Kurdish Freedom Movements. Its roots and context should be acknowledged. Jina Amini’s name should be remembered and her life as a Kurdish woman should not be erased.

[1] Arundhati Roy, Peace & the New Corporate Liberation Theology, Ctr. for Peace & Conflict Studs., 1, (lecture given on Nov. 3, 2004 at Seymour Centre, Sydney).

[2] Michael Georgy, Factbox: Death of Woman in Police Custody Puts Plight of Iran's Kurds in Focus, Reuters (Sept. 20, 2022), https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/death-woman-police-custody-puts-plight-irans-kurds-focus-2022-09-20/.

[3] Meral Çiçek, Jîna ‘Mahsa’ Amini Was Kurdish And That Matters, Novara Media (Oct. 4, 2022), https://novaramedia.com/2022/10/04/jina-mahsa-amini-was-kurdish-and-that-matters/.

[4] Michael Georgy, supra note 2.

[5]  Id.

[6] Nazanin Shahrokni, Women, Life, Freedom, 72 Hist. Today 11 (Nov. 2022), https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/women-life-freedom.

[7] Id.

[8] Id.

[9] Seyma Bahram, Iran's Protesters Find Inspiration in a Kurdish Revolutionary Slogan, NPR (Oct. 27, 2022),  https://www.npr.org/2022/10/27/1131436766/kurdish-roots-iran-protest-slogan.

[10] Meral Çiçek, supra note 3.

[11] Michael J. Kelly, The Kurdish Regional Constitution Within the Framework of the Iraqi Federal Constitution: A Struggle for Sovereignty, Oil, Ethnic Identity, and the Prospects for A Reverse Supremacy Clause, 114 Penn. St. L. Rev. 707, 710 (2010).

[12] Id.

[13]The Kurds’ Long Struggle With Statelessness 1920-2022, Council on Foreign Rels. (Nov. 22, 2022).

[14] Craig Douglas Albert, Ph.D., No Place to Call Home: The Iraqi Kurds Under the Ba'ath, Saddam Hussein, and Isis, 92 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 817, 836 (2017).

[15] Michael Georgy, supra note 2.

[16] Michael J. Kelly, supra note 11.

[17] Id.

[18] Iran: Human Rights Abuses Against the Kurdish Minority, Amnesty Int’l, 1, https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/489174f72.pdf (first published in 2008 by Amnesty Int’l Secretariat) (last visited Jan. 18, 2023).

[19] Id. at 2.

[20] Miloon Kothari, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing as a Component of the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living – Mission to the Islamic Republic (19-31 July 2005), UN Reference E/CN.4/2006/41Add.2, March 21, 2006.

[21] Reza Afshari, Human Rights in Iran: The Abuse of Cultural Relativism (2001) (citing Human Rights Watch Middle East, Iran, Religious and Ethnic Minorities, Discrimination in Law and Practice, 25 (Sept. 1997)).

[22] Amnesty Int’l, supra note 18 at 3.

[23] Id. at 4.

[24] Id. at 2. 

[25] Id.

[26] Id.

[27] Michael J. Kelly, supra note 11.

[28] Id.

[29] Amnesty Int’l, supra note 18.

[30] Meral Çiçek, supra note 3.

[31] Rez Gardi, From Suppression to Secession: Kurds, Human Rights and the Right to Self-Determination in Turkey, 24 ILSA J. Int'l & Comp. L. 61, 84 (2017).

[32] Ammar Karim, Iran Strengthens Political, Economic Hold Over Iraq, Al-Monitor (Dec. 11, 2022),

 https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/12/iran-strengthens-political-economic-hold-over-iraq.

[33] Craig Douglas Albert, Ph.D., supra note 14.

[34] Id.

[35] Meral Çiçek, supra note 3.