Iranian Kurdish cities and towns are tense more than a week since the uprising began

Buildings burning, protesters are bloodied, law enforcement vehicles are destroyed, hundreds of young men and women have been arrested and there is no end in sight. Iranian Kurdistan has been under what Iranian opposition called an “undeclared martial law” for the last week, and the Iranian regime has done all it can to keep it out of the media.

Thousands of Iranian Kurds have been demonstrating in the streets of roughly a dozen Iranian cities almost consistently for the past week. On Friday, protests turned violent as Iranian Kurdish political leaders called for an independent Kurdistan and democracy in Iran. It is one of the biggest Kurdish uprisings against the Iranian regime in years.

The initial protests against the regime’s oppression of Kurds began after a May 4 incident in which 25-year-old Farinaz Khosrawani jumped to her death from a window when an Iranian intelligence ministry agent tried to abuse her at the hotel where she worked in the Kurdish city of Mahabad. 

The Iranian regime is known for its intolerance of anti-regime sentiment of any kind, and its anti-riot tactics include shutting off the Internet, wireless services and other means of communication in addition to banning reporters from the area. This means the Iranian Kurdish uprising has not yet been televised much like the uprisings in Syria and Egypt, it is being broadcasted on social media.

When demonstrations began on May 7 in Mahabad, S. Kurdax, a Syrian Kurd whose name has been changed for security reasons and who was also forced to flee his own country when President Bashar Assad’s regime began arresting protesters in 2011, proposed to help. Along with several other Kurdish friends from the region, he created various social media accounts to provide accurate information from the ground in Iran, where many of his friends are demonstrating.

Since Khosrawani’s death, Iran’s suppressive security Forces have arrested hundreds of Kurdish youth in cities spanning the Iranian Kurdistan region on the border with Iraq. Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security has reportedly dispatched a “group of henchmen to torture and interrogate” the detainees, according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition of opposition groups that is described as a “parliament-in-exile.”

Demonstrators hold Kurdish flags outside the Iranian embassy in Vienna in solidarity with the Kurds protesting the regime in Iran, May 14, 2015

 s death, but they picked up momentum this week, as Kurds around the world showed their solidarity with the Iranian cause. On Thursday, demonstrations were held in front of the Iranian embassies in several European cities, including; Vienna, Paris and London. Meanwhile, at least 14 cities in Iranian Kurdish region held a general strike to protest the arrests earlier in the week.

Hundreds of demonstrators have reportedly been injured since the clashes began.

An Iranian Kurdish protester injured in clashes with the Iranian regime’s security forces in Mahabad, May 10, 2015 

Earlier this year, Amnesty International released a report that said Kurds make up the most executions per year compared to every other minority. And it seems Iranian Kurds have finally had enough of the regime’s oppression.

“Kurdish streets are angry. It was like a volcano in our Kurdish hearts,” Kurdax said, referencing “Arab Street,” the term used to describe public opinion across Arab countries. “We just want our rights. We are also human.”

Iranian Kurds hold a general strike across 14 cities in Iran in protest of the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses, May 14, 2015.