From protester to fighter: Fleeing Iran’s brutal crackdown to take up arms over the border | CNN

Iraqi Kurdistan
CNN
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A teenage dissident trailed behind a bunch of smugglers within the borderlands of western Iran. For 3 days, Rezan trekked a rocky mountain vary and walked by means of minefields alongside a winding path solid by seasoned smugglers to circumnavigate the nation’s closely armed Revolutionary Guards. It was a visit too harmful for respite of a lot various stolen moments at a time.

“I knew that if an officer noticed us, we might die instantly,” stated the 19-year-old Iran-Kurdish activist, whom CNN is figuring out by her pseudonym Rezan for safety functions. She was touring to the border with Iraq, one in every of Iran’s most militarized frontiers, the place based on rights teams, many have been shot to loss of life by Iranian safety forces for crossing illegally, or for smuggling illicit items.

She had fled her hometown of Sanandaj in western Iran the place safety forces had been wreaking loss of life and destruction on the protest websites. Demonstrators had been arbitrarily detained, some had been shot lifeless in entrance of her, she stated. Many had been overwhelmed up on the streets. Within the second week of the protests, safety forces pulled Rezan by her uncovered hair, she stated. As she was being dragged down the road, screaming in agony, she noticed her associates forcefully detained and kids getting overwhelmed.

“They pulled my hair. They beat me. They dragged me,” she stated, recounting the brutal crackdown within the Kurdish-majority metropolis. “On the similar time, I may see the identical factor taking place to many different folks, together with youngsters.”

Sanandaj has seen the a number of the largest protests in Iran, the largest outdoors of Tehran, for the reason that rebellion started in mid-September.

Rezan stated she had no alternative however to take the lengthy and dangerous journey with smugglers to Iraq. Leaving Iran by means of the closest official border crossing – a mere three-hour automotive experience away — may have led to her arrest. Staying in Sanandaj may have resulted in her loss of life by the hands of the safety forces.

“(Right here) I can get my rights to dwell as a lady. I need to struggle for the rights of ladies. I need to struggle for human rights,” she instructed CNN from northern Iraq. After she arrived right here earlier this month, she determined to alter tack. Now not a peaceable protester, Rezan determined to take up arms, enlisting with an Iranian-Kurdish militant group that has positions within the arid valleys of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Rezan is one in every of a number of Iranian dissidents who fled the nation within the final month, escaping the regime’s violent bid to quash demonstrations that erupted after the loss of life of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian lady Mahsa “Zhina” Amini throughout her detention by Iranian morality police for allegedly sporting a hijab improperly.

The variety of dissidents who’ve left Iran for the reason that protests began is unknown. Within the Kurdish-administered area of northern Iraq (KRG) — which borders the predominantly Kurdish west of Iran — most of the exiled activists hold a low profile, hiding in secure homes. They stated they concern reprisals towards their households again house, the place mass detentions have turn out to be commonplace in Kurdish-majority areas.

In keeping with eyewitnesses and social media movies, the folks in these areas have endured a number of the most heavy-handed techniques utilized by Iran’s safety forces of their brutal marketing campaign to crush the protest motion.

In Kurdish-majority areas, proof of safety forces indiscriminately capturing at crowds of protesters is widespread. The Iranian authorities additionally seems to have deployed members of its elite preventing drive, the Revolutionary Guards, to those areas to face off with demonstrators, based on eyewitnesses and video from the protest websites.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards sometimes struggle the regime’s battles additional afield, particularly in Iraq and Syria, propping up brutal dictatorships in addition to preventing extremist teams akin to ISIS.

For the Kurds, the intensified crackdown within the nation’s west underscores many years of well-documented ethnic marginalization by Iran’s central authorities. These are grievances that Iran’s different ethnic minorities share and that precede clerical rule in Iran.

The practically 10-million sturdy Kurdish inhabitants is the third largest ethnic group in Iran. Governments in Tehran — together with the regime of the pro-Western Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who was overthrown in 1979 — have eyed the group with suspicion due to their long-standing aspirations to secede from the state and set up a republic alongside Kurdish communities in neighboring international locations.

Crouched below the shade of a tree in a dusty valley alongside her sisters-in-arms in northern Iraq, Rezan clasps her AK-47 rifle, her faltering voice betraying a lingering concern of Iranian reprisals. After she fled Iran, the authorities there known as her household and threatened to arrest her siblings, she stated.

However her household helps her militancy, she stated, together with her mom vowing to bury each one in every of her youngsters slightly than hand them over to the authorities. “I carry a weapon as a result of we need to present the Iranian Kurds that they’ve somebody standing behind them,” Rezan stated from one of many bases of her militant group, the Kurdistan Freedom Get together (PAK). “I need to defend the Kurds there as a result of the Kurds are defending themselves with rocks.”

Protesters throughout Iran are largely unarmed. But Iran blames Kurdish-Iranian armed teams in Iraqi Kurdistan for instigating unrest in Kurdish-majority areas. It has repeatedly struck Iranian-Kurdish targets in Iraq with drones and missiles for the reason that protests started, killing scores of individuals.

Final Saturday, Iran’s Armed Forces chief accused the Iraqi Kurdistan area – which has a semi-autonomous authorities – of harboring 3,000 Iranian-Kurdish militants, and vowed to proceed to assault their bases except the federal government disarms the fighters.

“Iran’s operations towards terrorists will proceed. Irrespective of how lengthy it takes, we’ll proceed this operation and an even bigger one,” stated Maj. Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, the chief of employees of Iran’s Armed Forces.

PAK and different Iraq-based Kurdish-Iranian armed teams say they haven’t supported the protests in any concrete means. However they’ve known as on the USA to intervene on behalf of the demonstrators, and have stated they’re ready to assist Kurds in Iran take up arms in case of an additional escalation in Iran’s disaster.

“What’s taking place on the streets with the protesters was not engineered at my base,” PAK’s chief, Gen. Hussein Yazdanpanah, instructed CNN. He was talking from one of many group’s barracks that was blown up by Iranian missiles and drones on September 28, killing eight militants.

“(Iran) is utilizing us as a scapegoat for the protests in Iran and to distract media consideration from Iran,” stated Yazdanpanah, who believes that he was the goal of that assault.

“I gained’t disguise the truth that I’m a army assist for my folks,” he stated, standing amid the destruction at his base close to the city of Altun Kupri. The stench of two militants slain within the assault, however whose our bodies haven’t but been recovered, rises up from the rubble.

“For a revolution to succeed there needs to be army assist for the folks,” he added. “(Iran) wished folks to query this precept. (By bombing the bottom) they wished to say to them that there isn’t any army assist to guard you.”

Throughout the nation, protesters with a wide range of grievances — particularly associated to the dire state of Iran’s economic system and the marginalization of ethnic teams — have coalesced round an anti-regime motion that was ignited by Amini’s loss of life. Ladies have been on the forefront of the protests, arguing that Amini’s demise by the hands of the infamous morality police highlights girls’s plight below Islamic Republic legal guidelines that prohibit their gown and conduct.

Kurds in Iran additionally noticed their grievances mirrored in Amini’s loss of life. The younger lady’s Kurdish title — Zhina — was banned by a clerical institution that bars ethnic minority names, ostensibly to stop sowing ethnic divisions within the nation. Amini additionally was crying for assist in her Kurdish mom tongue when morality law enforcement officials violently compelled her right into a van, based on activists.

The primary massive protests in Iran’s present rebellion erupted in Amini’s Kurdish-majority hometown of Saqqez in western Iran, which has additionally been subjected to a violent crackdown. “After we had been in Iran, I joined the protests with associates. Two days later, two of my associates bought kidnapped and one in every of them bought injured,” stated one man who fled Saqqez to Iraqi Kurdistan, who CNN isn’t naming for safety causes.

Seated on carpet below a tree to keep away from any identification of their secure home, the person and his household stated they fear concerning the lengthy arms of Iran’s regime. The household cowl their faces with medical masks, the person wears lengthy sleeves to cowl figuring out tattoos and a plastic tarp is hung as much as obscure them from the ever-present concern of incoming Iranian drones.

He and his household determined to depart Iran when he noticed safety forces kill his pal close to a mosque within the first days of the rebellion, the person stated. “How can they declare to be an Islamic Republic after I noticed them murdering my pal outdoors a mosque?” he requested in disbelief.

He stated the group couldn’t retrieve his pal’s physique till evening fell, after which they secretly buried their lifeless. His testimony is just like a number of accounts CNN has heard for the reason that begin of Iran’s rebellion. Many within the Kurdish areas of Iran report opting to not obtain medical look after injured protesters in hospitals, for concern of arrest by authorities. Eyewitnesses additionally say some have even prevented sending their lifeless to morgues, for concern of reprisals towards members of the family.

Since they fled, dissidents in Iraqi Kurdistan say they continue to be involved with the family members they left behind. Each telephone name to their households comes with information of an intensified crackdown, in addition to experiences of individuals defying safety forces and persevering with to pour into the streets.

“From what I do know, my household is a part of the revolution and the revolution continues to this present day,” stated Rezan. “They’re able to die to get our rights.”