Kurdish MPs urge Iran to declare killing Kulbar illegal

TEHRAN, Iran (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdish Members of Parliament in Iran told Kurdistan24 they were urging the Tehran government to declare the killing of the Kulbar illegal.

Kurdish Kulbar (border couriers) are shot by Iranian guards on a weekly basis throughout the year.

The Kurdish term “Kulbar” consists of “kul” meaning back, and “bar” meaning carrying. “Kulbaran” is the plural form.

High rates of unemployment have affected Iran in general, and Kurds and Baluch ethnic minorities in particular.

Activists say men and few women in impoverished Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhilat) find no other means to earn a livelihood but to risk their lives.

They climb impassable passages for long hours, and sometimes days, while carrying goods such as tobacco and tea to make as little as $10 a day. 

According to human rights organizations, between 36 and 44 border couriers had been killed in 2015 alone, and at least 21 were wounded by Iranian government forces.

Iranian laws dictate that the border guards can fire their weapon only if they believe the trespasser is armed and dangerous.

They are also required to follow these steps: first, an oral warning, second, by shooting into the air, and third, targeting the lower body if they must fire.

But activists say the border guards fire at anything that moves among the trees and bushes, be it a human, an animal, or breeze, and they enjoy impunity for it.

“[The spilling of] Kurdish blood is halal in Iran,” Rebin Rahmani from Paris told Kurdistan24, using the Islamic term for what is “permissible.”

Rahmani is the director of the European branch of the Kurdistan Human Rights Network that regularly reports on the situation of the Kulbar, among other human rights violations in Rojhilat.

The United Nations’ March report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran states the arbitrary killing of the unarmed Kulbar is “in violation of Iran’s domestic laws and international obligations.”

In response to the UN’s concern for the plight of the border couriers, Iran said: “[I]t is very difficult to distinguish drug traffickers and armed bandits from real Kulbaran at [the] borders.”

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany