Internal Self-Determination
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2025 7:24 am
The Kurds in Southern Kurdistan underwent an actual genocidal, ethnic cleansing assault in the Anfal (‘the Spoils’) campaign of the Iraqi Ba‘ath regime in 1988, with thousands upon thousands of Kurds disappeared, executed, or gassed and 4,000 villages razed. The Kurds’ claim to secession was bolstered by the government’s nerve-gas attack, leading to the state’s forfeiture of its right to sovereignty, but no neighbouring states offered backing then to the Kurds. In contemporary Iraq there is currently no indication of flagrant, systematic, and persistent discrimination of Kurds that would justify the secession of the Kurdistan Regional Government. Therefore, the international community is not likely to endorse the secession of the Kurds in Bashûr without the consent of Baghdad.
The proposal put forth by the Kurdish movements for territorial autonomy as a model of internal self-determination to facilitate effective participation in public affairs, has been fully suppressed by the states of Turkey, Iran, and Syria. While autonomy within a federal arrangement may provide some degree of self-governance, it does not offer a viable path for the Kurds to achieve full sovereignty.
Modifying the states’ constitutions is not a tenable phone number list option. Democratic political frameworks are not available for the Kurds inhabiting the host states. They lack representation in governing bodies and are divested of effective participation in decision-making processes affecting them directly. Parties oriented toward the Kurdistan question are considered illegal by the host states, leading to their dissolution. The Kurds participate in general elections only via mainstream parties. The principle of proportional ethnic representation is denied in parliament and government staffing.
In Iran, legislative and local representation is supposedly guaranteed albeit subject to de facto and de jure discrimination. In periodic legislative and local elections (non-territorial arrangements) Kurdish candidates are filtered by state bodies, including the Guardian Council and intelligence agencies, to guarantee seats for pre-selected representatives in the Islamic Consultative Assembly and local councils. They represent the state, not the Kurdish people. This is the case with Kurdish representation in Turkey’s government.
In Turkey, most Kurdish mayors-elect were sacked and arrested on allegations of politically-motivated offences, replaced by the government’s appointees for longer than the legal tenure. Also, Kurdish parliamentarians, meeting the highest excessive and discriminatory electoral threshold in the OSCE, are stripped of their immunity collectively, receiving long imprisonment. The ECtHR ‘immediate release’ of Kurdish co-chairs of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), with numerous members in prison since 2015, went nowhere. This process is continuing.
The proposal put forth by the Kurdish movements for territorial autonomy as a model of internal self-determination to facilitate effective participation in public affairs, has been fully suppressed by the states of Turkey, Iran, and Syria. While autonomy within a federal arrangement may provide some degree of self-governance, it does not offer a viable path for the Kurds to achieve full sovereignty.
Modifying the states’ constitutions is not a tenable phone number list option. Democratic political frameworks are not available for the Kurds inhabiting the host states. They lack representation in governing bodies and are divested of effective participation in decision-making processes affecting them directly. Parties oriented toward the Kurdistan question are considered illegal by the host states, leading to their dissolution. The Kurds participate in general elections only via mainstream parties. The principle of proportional ethnic representation is denied in parliament and government staffing.
In Iran, legislative and local representation is supposedly guaranteed albeit subject to de facto and de jure discrimination. In periodic legislative and local elections (non-territorial arrangements) Kurdish candidates are filtered by state bodies, including the Guardian Council and intelligence agencies, to guarantee seats for pre-selected representatives in the Islamic Consultative Assembly and local councils. They represent the state, not the Kurdish people. This is the case with Kurdish representation in Turkey’s government.
In Turkey, most Kurdish mayors-elect were sacked and arrested on allegations of politically-motivated offences, replaced by the government’s appointees for longer than the legal tenure. Also, Kurdish parliamentarians, meeting the highest excessive and discriminatory electoral threshold in the OSCE, are stripped of their immunity collectively, receiving long imprisonment. The ECtHR ‘immediate release’ of Kurdish co-chairs of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), with numerous members in prison since 2015, went nowhere. This process is continuing.