On 7 May 2015, ethnic Kurds rioted in
Mahabad
Mahabad ( fa, مهاباد, ku, مەهاباد, translit=Mehabad), also Romanized as Mihābād and Muhābād and formerly known as Savojbolagh, is a city and capital of Mahabad County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its p ...
,
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, following the unexplained death on 4 May 2015 of Farinaz Khosravani, a 25-year-old Kurdish hotel chambermaid. Khosravani fell to her death from a fourth-floor window of the Tara, the hotel where she worked. Anger mounted following reports that Khosravani died attempting to escape an Iranian Revolutionary Guard official who allegedly raped her. The rioters reportedly set fire to the hotel. At least 25 people were wounded in the riot.
Unrest and violence spread to other Kurdish cities in Iran, such as
Sardasht, where police clashed with hundreds of protesters on 9 May 2015.
One protester was reportedly killed in the clashes, and that additionally, Kurdish insurgent group
PJAK had attacked an Iranian checkpoint killing two Iranian personnel, according to PJAK. According to ARA sources, as of May 11, the death toll climbed to 6 protesters killed.
In response to the mass protests, the Iranian government reacted by executing an alleged 84 of its supporters and arresting dozens more. As a result, the
Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan
The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI; ku, حیزبی دێموکراتی کوردستانی ئێران, Hîzbî Dêmukratî Kurdistanî Êran, HDKA; fa, حزب دموکرات کردستان ایران, Ḥezb-e Demokrāt-e Kordest ...
announced it was
reviving its armed struggle early in 2016.
[Return to Arms: Hadaka]
26 Apr 2017. ''Al Jazeera''. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
See also
*
Kurdish separatism in Iran
Kurdish separatism in Iran or the Kurdish–Iranian conflict is an ongoing, long-running, separatist dispute between the Kurdish opposition in Western Iran and the governments of Iran, lasting since the emergence of Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1918.
...
*
February 1999 Kurdish protests
References
{{Protests in Iran
2015 in Iran
2015 protests
2015 riots
History of Mahabad
Human rights abuses in Iran
Iranian Kurdistan
Kurdish protests
Kurdish separatism in Iran
Protests in Iran
Riots and civil disorder in Iran
May 2015 events in Iran