{"id":116142,"date":"2024-01-31T08:51:15","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T13:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=116142"},"modified":"2024-01-31T08:51:15","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T13:51:15","slug":"western-iran-businesses-strike-to-protest-execution-of-kurds-say-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2024\/01\/31\/western-iran-businesses-strike-to-protest-execution-of-kurds-say-activists\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Iran Businesses Strike To Protest Execution of Kurds, Say Activists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"dateline\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-116143 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/rally-in-Berlin-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/rally-in-Berlin-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/rally-in-Berlin-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/rally-in-Berlin-24x16.jpg 24w, https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/rally-in-Berlin-36x24.jpg 36w, https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/rally-in-Berlin-48x32.jpg 48w, https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/rally-in-Berlin.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>VOA \u2014 PARIS \u2014 <\/span>Businesses and shops in several cities in Kurdish-populated western Iran shut down Tuesday in a strike protesting the hanging a day earlier of four Kurds convicted of collaborating with Israel, activists said.<\/p>\n<p>The four, who had been arrested in July 2022, were hanged at a prison in the city of Karaj outside Tehran in defiance of a campaign by rights groups who said their trial had been grossly unfair.<\/p>\n<p>Their hanging added to concerns over a surge in executions in Iran, which has seen on average two people executed every day so far this month, according to campaigners.<\/p>\n<p>The Norway-based Kurdish-focused Hengaw group and the France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network published images they said showed whole streets of shops shuttered in major urban centers, including Kermanshah, Saqez and Sanandaj.<\/p>\n<p>Hengaw said the action was observed in a dozen towns and cities, with internet connections cut and Revolutionary Guard Corps helicopters circling overhead in some areas.<\/p>\n<p>Abdullah Mohtadi, secretary general of the Komala Party which wants greater self-determination for Iran&#8217;s Kurdish minority but is outlawed by Tehran, wrote on the social media platform X that the general strike had been a &#8220;complete success.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The region had been a major center for the nationwide protests that erupted in September 2022 following the death in police custody of the Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, who was from Saqez.<\/p>\n<p>Joanna Taimasi, the wife of Mohsen Mazloum, one of the executed men, wrote on X that authorities had refused to hand over the bodies of the four men to their families in western Iran and that they would &#8220;instead be buried in an unspecified place.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And Bayan Azimi, whose husband, Pejman Fatehi, was executed, wrote on Instagram she had cut off her son&#8217;s braid of hair that he had insisted on growing until the day his father was free.<\/p>\n<p>From Tehran&#8217;s Evin prison, 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi said in a message relayed by her family that she and other women &#8220;political prisoners&#8221; in the jail were again going on a daylong hunger strike to protest the latest executions.<\/p>\n<p>The Iranian judiciary said the four men were convicted of collaborating with Israel on a plan to sabotage an Iranian defense site in the central province of Isfahan.<\/p>\n<p>But Amnesty International said it was horrified by the &#8220;arbitrary execution&#8221; of the four men, whom it described as &#8220;Iranian Kurdish dissidents&#8221; sentenced to death &#8220;after a grossly unfair secret trial.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VOA \u2014 PARIS \u2014 Businesses and shops in several cities in Kurdish-populated western Iran shut down Tuesday in a strike protesting the hanging a day earlier of four Kurds convicted of collaborating with Israel, activists said. The four, who had been arrested in July 2022, were hanged at a prison in the city of Karaj [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":116143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recposts"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116142"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116145,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116142\/revisions\/116145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}