Joint Statement by the Kurdistan Human Rights Organizations of condemning the Assassination of Musa Babakhani

Hengaw: Four human rights organizations active in Iranian Kurdistan issued a statement condemning the assassination of Musa Babakhani and requests the leadership of the Kurdistan Democratic Party to seriously pursue the issue and clarify the process of investigating the assassination by the Kurdistan Regional Judiciary and Security.

On Thursday 5th August 1400, Musa Babakhani, a member of the leadership of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, was assassinated by shooting with two bullets in Hewler “Erbil”, the capital of the Kurdistan Region.

The preliminary investigations and documents state that the assassination of this political activist, who was also the member of the Leadership Committee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, was performed by the intelligence organisations of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The assassinations and physical eliminations by The Iranian regime have been an integral of internal and foreign policies against the Iranian oppositions for the past few decades.

The Human Rights organisations in Kurdistan, while strongly condemning the assassination of “Musa Babakhani”, call on all the International Human Rights organisations, especially The Human Rights reporters, especially the Special Reporter on the situation of human rights in Iran, to pay due attention to this issue. The Kurdistan Human Rights Institutions also calls on the security and judicial institutions of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to seriously investigate the issue and clarify the process of its consideration in terms of its importance.

As a group of the human rights organisations in Kurdistan, while offering our condolences to the Kurdish nation, we call on all political, civil and human rights movements in Iran and Kurdistan not to remain silent in the face of the violent policies of the Islamic Republic. We also call on all of them to protest the continuing killing and assassination policies against the Kurdish political activists.

It is worth mentioning that the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran has assassinated hundreds of the Kurdish political, civil and human rights activists in the Kurdistan Region as well as in European countries since the beginning of its authoritarian. The authoritarian regime by constantly threatening the civil, political and human rights activists, it attempts to assassinate and eliminate the Kurdish activists.

The assassination of the political activists outside Kurdistan happens as the regime has imprisoned thousands of the political activists and executed dozens of the political activists inside the country in the recent years. The judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in Kurdistan was totally a part of the security intelligences, which have basically no judicial independence, therefore the largest number of branches of the revolutionary courts are formed in different cities of Kurdistan.

In the end, while re-condemning the assassination of Musa Babakhani, we will do our strongest to use the legal mechanisms to investigate the assassination in particular and the tragic human rights situation in Kurdistan in general.

Signatures of the organisations;

The Kurdistan Human Rights Association (KMMK) e.V.

Iranian Kurdistan Human Rights Centre

Hana Human Rights Organisation

Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights

11 August 2021