The British Committee for Iran Freedom strongly condemns the forcible displacement of Iranian Kurdish parties in Iraq’s Kurdistan region and extradition of an Iranian asylum seeker, Behzad Khosravi, from Iraq to Iran following the recent visit of Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian to Iraq.

Reportedly at the behest of the regime in Iran and pressures from Tehran, members of the Kurdish parties and their families are forced to move involuntarily from their homes of 35 years and relocate to a camp that lacks basic facilities such as water. Their lives are now at risk, particularly the children and women.

We are deeply concerned over the extradition of an Iranian asylum seeker from Sulaymaniyah in Iraq’s Kurdistan region to Iran. We condemn these extraditions given the regime’s systematic human rights violations, including suppression of ethnic and religious minorities as well as crimes against humanity to suppress dissent, are known and documented by UN experts.

As Iranians commemorate the second anniversary of the 2022 nationwide protests, the international community must take action to protect Iranian refugees, activists and dissidents and stand with the Iranian people.

We urge the Kurdistan Regional Government not togive into pressure from the Iranian regime and the Government of Iraq to persecute Iranian refugees and Kurdish communities and to report any such malign action to the UN Security Council for assistance.

The UN and its Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) must now intervene to address this alarming development and make it clear to the Iranian regime that it must stop targeting Iranian refugees and dissidents in violation of international law and conventions.

British Committee for Iran Freedom

19 September 2024