KurdistanObserver.com

Peace Restored In Restive Kurdish City in Iran after killing of young activist says governor

TEHRAN - AP- July 24, 2005-The governor of a Kurdish town in western Iran said on Sunday that peace had returned after weeks of unrest sparked by the deadly police shooting of a young activist.

The unrest in Mahabad erupted after police killed Kurdish activist Kamal Astrom Qadri, nicknamed Shovaneh, on July 9 after he refused to surrender.

Qadri, who had been on the run, was said to be organizing protest rallies against the ruling Islamic establishment and stoking Kurdish nationalism.

Mahabad Governor Marouf Samadi said police detained 64 protesters during the unrest and have since released all but 11 of them. He denied reports that Qadri was tortured before his death at the hands of police.

“The city has returned to normal. Excluding 11, all those detained have been freed,” Samadi told The Associated Press on Sunday.

At least one police officer was killed and 60 officers were wounded in several days of unrest in

Mahabad, local police chief Hossein Abdi said.

Mahabad residents took to the streets after relatives of Qadri posted photographs of his brutalized corpse on the Internet. The photos depicted signs suggesting torture, including the dead man’s bloodied face and bruised and swollen back.

Governor Samadi said photos posted online were different from those taken before authorities handed over the body to Qadri’s family.

Qadri was considered a key figure in organizing celebrations after the election of Massoud Barzani as the first president of Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region last month. The celebrations prompted clashes with police in several Kurdish towns in western Iran.

Kurdish activist Ejlal Ghavami said Qadri was a Kurdish nationalist who led almost all anti-regime protests in Mahabad, which prompted police to seek his arrest.

Ghavami said Iranian opposition Kurdish groups including the Iranian Kurdistan Democratic Party and Pejvak have called on Kurds in western Iran to begin a civil disobedience movement.

“Kurdish activists have also called for the punishment of those responsible of Qadri’s murder,” Ghavami said.

Barzani is a Sunni Muslim Iraqi Kurd and leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Mustafa Barzani, Massoud’s father, was commander-in-chief of the republic of Kurdistan in Iran, headed by Qazi Muhammad in Mahabad in 1945. Iran’s armed forces recaptured Mahabad and dismantled the self-proclaimed republic in 1946.