Academics call for acquittal of activist convicted in Iran for teaching Kurdish language

The academics said that “over the past 40 years the Islamic Republic of Iran has refrained from implementing Article 15 of the constitution and consistently treated non-Persian languages as threats to Iran’s national security.”

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Academics across the world in a signed statement called for the acquittal Zara Mohammadi, an activist convicted in Iran for teaching the Kurdish language. Among them famed American linguist Noam Chomsky and Turkish sociologist İsmail Beşikçi, the experts also called for an end to discriminatory policies in Iran against non-Persian languages.

On July 14, 2020, an Islamic Revolutionary Court in Iran sentenced Zara Mohammadi to ten years in prison on charges of being a national security threat. Her lawyer has defended her by saying that she had been captured for teaching her mother tongue to children and being involved in other cultural activities.

Read more: Kurdish language teacher sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iran

Zara Mohammadi is a co-founder of the Nojin Cultural Association, which is a civil society organization focused on societal and educational initiatives, including teaching the Kurdish language and literature.

"The Islamic Revolutionary Court's verdict insinuates that Zara Mohammadi's Kurdish instruction threatened Iran's "national security." It is worth noting that the Revolutionary Courts are not constitutional. According to Article 61 of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, "the judiciary power is exercised by the Public Courts of Justice"," the academics said in a signed statement.

"Moreover, while Iran's constitution explicitly privileges the Persian language as the country's official language and language of education and therefore marginalises other languages spoken in Iran as "tribal" and "local," it does explicitly allow the instruction of non-Persian languages (Article 15)," they said.

Although Kurdish culture, such as dress and music, is allowed and Kurdish is used in some broadcasts and publications, the Kurdish minority continues to suffer deep-rooted discrimination in Iran. Moreover, the Persian language is the sole medium of instruction in primary and secondary education in Iran.

Kurdish is not taught in schools.

According to Amnesty International's annual human rights review published in February, ethnic minorities in Iran, including Kurds, continue to face "entrenched discrimination, curtailing their access to education, employment, and adequate housing."

There are over 12 million Kurds who live in Iran and form around 15 to 17 percent of the population.

"The verdict pronounced against Zara is a clear example of the Islamic Republic of Iran's duplicitous policy toward non-Persian languages of Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution," Dr. Haidar Khezri, Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Central Florida, USA, told Kurdistan 24 on Sunday.

Khezri was among the signatories of the statement calling for Mohammadi's release.

The move is, "[o]n the one hand, an explicit constitutional commitment to diversity at the rhetorical level, and, on the other, a policy of assimilationism and soft linguicide in practice, and even punitive reactions." 

Furthermore, the academics said that "over the past 40 years the Islamic Republic of Iran has refrained from implementing Article 15 of the constitution and consistently treated non-Persian languages as threats to Iran's national security."

"The Revolutionary Court's latest ruling against Zara Mohammadi is therefore only the latest instance of the Islamic Republic's securitization of the promotion, even by private individuals, of non-Persian languages."

According to the academics, Iran's discriminatory practices against the Kurdish language "are in clear violation of several international conventions and covenants, including the United Nations' International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, of which Iran is a signatory."

They condemned the "Islamic Revolutionary Court's unlawful verdict and called for the immediate acquittal of Zara Mohammadi and an end to discriminatory policies in Iran against non-Persian languages."

Editing by Khrush Najari