Kurdish Language Temporarily Removed From Kirkuk Public Signs

Mansouri claims that the status of Kurds in Iran is even worse than it is in Iraq, as there the only official language is Persian:

“According to Article 15 and 19 of Iran’s constitution, teaching and learning other languages in school is allowed, but it does not happen.  Studying Kurdish language in schools and universities is forbidden and Kurdish children are forced to study in Persian from age 6.  Although they let some books and magazines be published in Kurdish, the content of such books and magazines is heavily censored by the government.”

Mansouri stressed that there are up to a million Kurds living in Iran who “have no right to teach and learn their mother tongue.” He described how a Kurdish girl named Zahra Mohammadi, who was teaching Kurdish to children as part of her work for an NGO named Nojin, was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. He added that recently, “a secret letter was revealed in which the government ordered that the names of shops, stores, streets, etc. must only be in Persian.”

The Iranian government does not grant identity cards and birth certificates to children with Kurdish names, so parents are often forced to change their children’s names to Persian names. According to Mansouri, “The Iranians only recognize Persian identity and consider all other nationalities in Iran including the Kurds to be merely tribes or subnations.  They do their best to remove Kurdish names from streets, roads, villages and even mountains and rivers.”