The month of September was marked in Iran by demonstrations commemorating the first anniversary of the death of Jîna Mehsa Aminî. And of the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement that followed her death in police custody.
A year ago, the young Iranian Kurdish student Jîna Mahsa Amînî died in police custody in Teheran for wearing the Islamic veil imposed by the Ayatollahs' regime since 1979.
Her death triggered a wave of indignation and protest, first in her native Iranian Kurdistan and then gradually throughout Iran. This vast protest movement, federated around the slogan "Jin, Jiyan, Azadî" (Women, Life, Freedom), mobilized all social strata and all generations. High-school and middle-school girls took part en masse alongside students, employees, workers and middle-class people. The protests, which lasted several months, were brutally repressed by the Iranian regime, whose legitimacy was challenged.
According to human rights NGOs, 597 people were killed, including 70 minors, 19,262 were injured and 14,000 were arrested in 134 towns and 132 universities across the country.
To mark the anniversary, the Iranian regime deployed large forces to prevent any popular demonstrations, particularly in Kurdistan and Baluchistan, the two provinces most hostile to the Islamic Republic, and made numerous preventive arrests, including that of Jîna Aminî's uncle on September 5 (see Le Monde, p. 16), and that of nine civilians in Kurdistan (see p. 37).
On September 3, a Teheran court sentenced two women journalists to 3 years in prison for "conspiracy" and "collusion". Elnaz Mohammadi and her sister Elaheh Mohammadi, detained since September 2022 for covering Jîna Mahsa Aminî's funeral for the daily Ham Mihan (Compatriot).
On August 31, a protester, Javad Rouhi, also detained since September 2022 for taking part in the demonstrations that followed Jîna Aminî's death, died in prison at the age of 35. According to the official Iranian justice website "Mizan Online", he succumbed to an epileptic seizure. But according to Amnesty International, Javad Rouhi had no known medical history prior to his arrest. But his arrest and the intense acts of torture to which he was subjected (beaten while tied to a pole, electrocuted with stun guns, exposed to freezing temperatures, sexually assaulted and subjected to mock executions) left him with severe after-effects, aggravated by the lack of medical treatment (see La Croix, p.1).
In Kurdistan, a well-attended general strike was called by the Coordination Committee of Kurdish political parties and trade unions. Starting on September 16, the anniversary of Jîna Aminî's death, all stores, markets and businesses were closed for three days. Internet access was suspended. In the rest of Iran, spontaneous demonstrations took place, but were quickly suppressed. Access to Jîna Aminî's hometown, Saqqez, was blocked, her family placed under house arrest, and all commemorations at the cemetery banned.
The Kurdish and Iranian diaspora mobilized in major European capitals, Canada and the United States, where President Joe Biden issued a message of support, declaring: "In the face of continued oppression and violence, the citizens of Iran remain committed to their struggle for a free and democratic future (...). Only Iranians will determine the fate of their country, but the United States remains committed to standing with them". He salutes "the courageous Iranians who continue Mahsa Amini's mission" (see p. 115).
On September 15, the United Kingdom announced sanctions against several Iranian officials, including the Minister of Culture, the Mayor of Teheran and the police spokesman. On the same day, the European Union added four Iranian officials to the list of those sanctioned for their repression of protests in Iran. They are a commander of the Revolutionary Guards, two regional police chiefs and a prison director. Since the start of the crackdown, the 27 EU countries have already imposed visa bans and asset freezes on 170 Iranian citizens, companies and agencies (see p. 116). These are symbolic sanctions with no significant impact on the regime.
In France, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo inaugurated a "Mahsa Jîna Aminî Garden" on September 16, in the presence of a large crowd of Kurds, Iranians, elected representatives including senators Rémi Féraud and Janick Jadot, several deputy mayors and Alexandra Cordebard, mayor of the 10th arrondissement. For its part, the Kurdish Institute of Paris organized a symposium on September 30 at the 10th arrondissement town hall, entitled The situation of women and human rights in Kurdistan and Iran. A round-table discussion moderated by Professor Hamid Bozarslan brought together Kurdish and Iranian academics to share their analyses and insights.
In addition, a group of prominent figures, including former boxing champion Mahyar Monshipur, has called for Iran to be excluded from the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games on the grounds that it violates the fundamental principles of Olympism (see Le Monde p. 49). On September 21, the European Parliament nominated Jîna Mahsa Amini for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought (see p. 77).
The Iranian regime seems unperturbed by internal protests and Western condemnations. On September 20, the Iranian parliament approved by 152 votes to 34 a bill called "Support for the Culture of Chastity and the Veil", which strengthens sanctions against women who do not wear the compulsory veil in public places. It also provides for financial penalties for "promoting nudity" or "mocking the hijab" in the media and on social networks (see p. 75-75). A water park was closed for allowing women to enter without veils (see p.15).
Meanwhile, the Iranian regime scored a diplomatic success by agreeing, through Qatar, a prisoner exchange deal with the United States. On September 18, five Americans (of Iranian origin) held captive in Iran were released and arrived in Doha (Qatar). In exchange, five Iranian nationals sentenced or prosecuted in the United States were granted "clemency measures" and returned to Iran. To secure this prisoner swap, Washington agreed to unfreeze six billion dollars of Iranian assets frozen in South Korea as a result of US sanctions. The funds were transferred to six Iranian accounts in two banks in Qatar on the same day. In principle, these funds can only be used for humanitarian purchases (food, medicine, etc.). But no one is under any illusions: Iran, expert in the art of circumventing sanctions over the past 40 years, will find the means to use them as it pleases. This financial windfall arrived in Iranian accounts, the day after the anniversary of Jîna Mahsa Amini's death.
On September 13, the European Parliament adopted by a very large majority (434 votes in favor, 18 against and 152 abstentions) a report on the European Union's relations with Turkey, which puts an end to the Turkish accession process.
According to the report, "unless the Turkish government radically changes course, Turkey's EU accession process cannot be resumed in the present circumstances". As Erdogan's Turkey is unlikely to radically change course in the foreseeable future, MEPs "call on the Turkish government, the European Union and its member states to break the current deadlock and move towards a closer partnership", recommend finding "a parallel and realistic framework for EU-Turkey relations", and invite the Commission to "explore different possible formats".
Clearly, Turkey's accession project is unrealistic, and the Commission should explore a more realistic framework that could be described as a "strategic partnership" or special or privileged partnership in terms of security, trade relations and migration. The Euro MPs stress that even within this partnership framework, Turkey must respect democratic values and human rights, and comply with the laws, principles and obligations of the European Union.
The report provoked strong reactions in Ankara, where the Turkish president accused the EU of "strategic blindness". He is convinced that, because of its geographical location, Turkey is indispensable to Europe, which must accept it as it is, and that, as it is already a "superior democracy", it does not need to adapt to EU laws and rules, and that it has no lessons in democracy to learn from Europeans, who, in his view, are guilty of Islamophobia. It is with this same logic that Ankara refuses to apply the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, which in principle are binding on all signatory states of the European Convention on Human Rights and members of the Council of Europe. Turkey's suspension or even exclusion from the Council is the subject of recurrent debate within the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which for the time being is taking a wait-and-see attitude.
The European Parliament report "welcomes Turkey's vote condemning Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine at the United Nations General Assembly and its commitment to the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity", while regretting that it does not support sanctions outside the UN framework. According to the report, "Turkey's rate of alignment with the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy has fallen to an all-time low of 7%, by far the lowest of all the enlargement countries".
Reacting to this stark observation, the Turkish president, en route to New York for the UN General Assembly, declared on September 16 that Turkey could "separate from the European Union if necessary". Taking up his usual diatribes against the EU for being a "Christian club" and making Turkey wait unfairly at its gates, he asserted that "the EU is trying to separate from Turkey. We will evaluate these developments and, if necessary, separate from the EU (see p.47 and 58).
However, Turkey is facing a serious economic crisis, with inflation at 58.9% in August, short-term debt in excess of $200 billion, and a central bank rate of 30% that is penalizing investment. It does not have the luxury of opening a crisis with the EU, which remains its main trading partner. Especially as its relations with Russia are also showing their limits. Dismayed by Ankara's green light for Sweden to join NATO, the Russian president has not responded to his counterpart's invitations to visit Turkey. The Syrian president refuses to meet him until he withdraws his occupation troops from Syria. With Iraq, too, relations are becoming strained as a result of Turkish bombing raids in Kurdistan, sometimes over 100 km from the Turkish border, despite the fact that the oral "agreement" agreed with Saddam Hussein authorizes the Turkish army to prosecute terrorist attacks "up to 5 km from the border", and that there is currently no agreement between Ankara and Baghdad authorizing Turkish military intervention in Iraq. Apart from Qatar and, to a lesser extent, the other Gulf petro-monarchies, Erdogan's Turkey can now only count on Azerbaijan, whose offensive against the small Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh was celebrated by the Turks as a victory.
Once considered the most Westernized of Muslim countries, Turkey under Erdogan has become a Middle Eastern country, with women wearing Islamic headscarves omnipresent in the media, universities, police and administration. The Imam Hatip high schools created to train preachers and imams for the mosques have multiplied to the point where they now have over a million students. The project to train a "pious generation", the construction of mosques on an unprecedented scale and the huge budget allocated to the Religious Affairs Directorate have profoundly transformed Turkey into a conservative Islamist state. The secular and liberal elite are leaving the country. Dissenting voices are systematically stifled. Thus, despite a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights ordering his release, the Turkish philanthropist Osman Kavala, detained for six years, saw his life sentence confirmed on September 28 by the Turkish Court of Cassation, which incriminated him as the "main organizer and financier" of the protests against the transformation of Istanbul's Gezi Park into barracks. Demonstrating for the preservation of a park is considered by the Turkish justice system to be "an attempt to overthrow the government" (see p. 97).
After long and difficult negotiations, and following a final meeting on September 14 between a Kurdish delegation led by Prime Minister Masrour Barzani and Iraqi Prime Minister Chia al-Soudani, the Iraqi federal government decided on September 17 to grant additional funds to the Kurdistan Region to enable it to pay the salaries of its employees and civil servants, as well as the pensions of pensioners. This involves additional funding of 700 billion dinars ($530 million) per month, for a period of three months, for a total sum of around $1.690 billion.
These sums will be disbursed to Kurdistan via loans from three state-owned banks and repaid by the Iraqi Ministry of Finance, according to a press release issued on September 17 by the Iraqi government, which states that this mechanism is intended to provide "liquidity to the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq and enable it to pay civil servants' salaries, social subsidies and pensioners' pensions". The relevant departments in Baghdad and Kurdistan have one month to "verify the numbers of civil servants, social subsidy recipients and pensioners". The money thus released will be used to pay salaries and pensions for September, October and November 2023. There is no provision for any further payments, nor for unpaid salaries and pensions for July and August. This is therefore a temporary compromise which the Prime Minister of Kurdistan has welcomed (see p. 64).
The budget law approved by the Iraqi parliament last June provided for 12.6% of the federal budget to be allocated to Kurdistan, but Baghdad, under various pretexts, failed to make the transfers required by law. At the beginning of September, Iraq released a sum of 500 billion dinars (around $382 million), a sum denounced as "insufficient" or even a pittance by the Kurdistan government, which states that the Region needs 940 billion dinars ($717 million) per month and calls on Baghdad to honor its commitments (see p. 11). On September 6, the Kurdistan Council of Ministers reiterated this demand: "Baghdad must send the Kurdistan Region its financial endowment, in accordance with its monthly budget of 1375 billion dinars, 906 billions of which are allocated to salaries, so that the Kurdistan Regional Government can pay salaries and pensions" (see p. 20).
On September 5, several thousand civil servants demonstrated in Duhok to demand payment of their salaries. In Suleimaniah province there have been sporadic strikes by teachers who have been deprived of salaries for months. Due to the financial crisis that since 2014 has hit Kurdistan, salaries have for years been unable to be paid in full. Exports of Kurdish oil via Turkey made it possible to pay a good part of them until last March, when these were suspended, depriving Kurdistan of the bulk of its own resources. The often-announced imminent resumption of oil exports has been delayed by the financial dispute between Baghdad and Ankara. Any Iraqi-Turkish agreement will be less advantageous for Turkey than the Kurdish-Turkish agreement which prevailed until last March. The halt to oil exploration in Kurdistan has already cost Kurdistan and Iraq over 6 billion in lost revenue.
If the financial crisis persists, it could destabilize Kurdistan and the region. This was the message given by the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinker, to the Iraqi Prime Minister on September 19 during a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. According to the State Department spokesman's statement, "The Secretary (of State) called on the Iraqi government to continue its cooperation with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to strengthen the KRG's stability and resilience".
This stability is also threatened by Turkey's recent bombardments, by Iran's injunctions and interference, and by untimely decisions by the Federal Court in Baghdad. On September 24, the latter decided to dissolve the Kurdistan municipal councils elected in 2014 for a four-year term, which were due to be renewed in 2018. However, extreme tension and conflict following the September 2017 referendum prevented the elections from taking place. To avoid an administrative vacuum, the Kurdistan Parliament decided to extend the mandate of these councils.
The governor of Erbil described the decision as "political", as several other Iraqi provinces, including Kirkuk, were also unable to renew their councils on time without the Court's concern.
Turkey continues to violate Iraqi airspace with impunity. On September 18, it went so far as to bomb a Kurdish airport, Arbat, 27 km from Suleimaniah, killing three members of Kurdistan's anti-terrorist services and wounding three others. On September 19, a senior Iraqi official confirmed that the drone that carried out the attack had indeed come from Turkey, and that the attack violated Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The Iraqi President has strongly condemned this aggression, but Ankara doesn't care. The Turks claim that this airport was used to train members of the YGG, Syrian Kurdish fighters allied with the international coalition in the war against ISIS, who are considered "terrorists" by Ankara.
To remove any pretext for Iranian military intervention, the Kurdistan government has evacuated the camps of Kurdish political exiles from Iran. Families have been dispersed to various locations. Teheran is now demanding that the Iranian Kurdish political exiles be handed over to it, which the Kurdistan government categorically refuses. Emerging from his cautious silence, the President of Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, declared that there was "no excuse for Iranian military intervention". Baghdad also asserted that it had respected the terms of the agreement reached with Teheran on this subject last April.
The predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (FDS), allies of the international coalition in the war against ISIS, have had a very turbulent and deadly month. After around ten days of clashes with certain tribes in the Arab-majority province of Deir-ez-Zor, they were able to restore order and retake villages and localities taken over by the insurgents. The insurgents had risen up following the arrest on August 27 of local tribal leader Ahmad al-Khubei, also known as Abu Khawla, accused of trafficking, corruption and collusion with the Syrian regime. Appointed by the Rojava administration as head of the Deir ez-Zor military council, he is said to have abused his position to enrich himself and indulge in all manner of trafficking, drawing criticism from the local population. Without approving of his misdeeds, three Arab tribes, out of tribal solidarity, joined his supporters in their mutiny against the FDS. Turkey blew on the embers in an attempt to mobilize other Arab tribes who, in the end, preferred to remain neutral. The clashes left 90 people dead, including 25 Kurdish fighters (see Le Figaro p. 18, Libération p. 22 and Le Monde p. 23). In a statement issued on September 1, the US military command in the Middle East (Centcom) called for an end to the violence in north-eastern Syria (see AFP p. 99).
On September 6, the FDS announced "the end of military operations" in the province, and the following day, their commander-in-chief, Kurdish general Mazloum Kobani, announced an amnesty for all those who had taken up arms against them in a bid to appease them, and promised to resolve the problems of Deir ez-Zor through dialogue, with the aim of achieving peace, stability and development. We have already released half of our prisoners and the release of the others will follow soon," he added (see p. 20).
The day before this announcement, pro-Turkish factions claiming to belong to these insurgent Arab tribes attacked SDF positions in Manbij province "in support of Arab fighters in Deir-ez-Zor", according to AFP (see p. 106). 4 Turkish militiamen were killed, according to a report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), which says the clashes forced dozens of families to flee.
On September 26, Syrian regime gunmen crossed the Euphrates and infiltrated the SDF-controlled town of Dherbani in the province of Deir ez-Zor. The clashes lasted throughout the night of September 25 to 26 and left 25 people dead, including 21 pro-regime gunmen, three FDS fighters and one civilian victim, according to the ODHS (see p. 126).
For its part, Turkey continued its operations against civilian targets such as power plants and infrastructure. It also used its drones to assassinate Kurdish fighters. On September 15, a Turkish drone hit a car on the road south of Manbij, killing three Kurdish fighters: Candan Cerdi, Servin Serdar and Nurcan Ocalan. They belonged to the Women's Protection Units (YPG), according to a statement by the Manbij Military Council. Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said in a twit that he "deeply regrets the death of the three Kurdish female fighters", adding that he had met Serdar in 2016 to express his "support in the common fight against ISIS". He was the only Western official to express "regret!". No other leader of the international coalition felt it necessary to speak out to regret or condemn the murder of these young female fighters who are fighting and dying in the fight against ISIS.
According to the OSDH count (see p. 115) since the beginning of the year, 58 people have died in Turkish drone strikes, including 13 civilians and 42 members of Kurdish forces and their allies.
Meanwhile, in response to escalating inflationary pressures in Syria, where the Syrian pound has lost over 80% of its value in just three months, the Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria (AANES) has announced a substantial increase in the salaries of its administrative and clerical staff. The minimum monthly salary for AANES staff has been raised to $75, while the maximum salary has been adjusted to around $590. This salary adjustment is designed to cope with the deteriorating economic situation and galloping inflation. The dire economic conditions have triggered protests in southern Syria, governed by the Syrian regime, as the cost of essential goods has soared.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the Syrian government was not showing a "positive attitude" towards ongoing discussions between Ankara and Damascus aimed at normalizing the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad. Erdoğan expressed contempt for Assad's apparent passivity towards the growing consensus between Syria, Turkey, Iran and Russia in favor of Syria's regional reintegration. Despite hopes that Assad and Erdogan would meet soon to discuss normalization, Assad asserted that he would not meet with Erdoğan until all Turkish forces had been withdrawn from northern Syria. Erdogan responded to Assad's assertion by saying that Turkey's military presence in Syria is necessary to counter the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the People's Protection Units (YPG). Elsewhere, Erdogan renewed his threats against the Kurdish people of Syria on Sunday, saying he would eliminate “terrorists” in northern Syria to facilitate the return of Arab refugees to Syria. Erdogan's vision for this return includes the construction of permanent settlements of Arabs on ancestral Kurdish lands, clearly to undermine the cohesion of Kurdistan as a whole through the creation of an "Arab belt" on the Turkish-Turkish border. Syrian. Turkey and Saudi Arabia have continued to build what will be the second largest settlement in Turkish-occupied Afrin. Turkey continued its policy of changing the demographics of northern Syria by carrying out ethnic cleansing against its Kurdish residents and replacing them with forcibly repatriated Syrian Arabs. Turkish policy has reduced the percentage of Kurds in and around Afrin from 95 percent to around 36 percent. Many returnee Syrian refugees are housed in more than 100 settlement complexes built by Turkey in collaboration with humanitarian organizations and financed with funds from Gulf states like Kuwait.
Turkey has appointed a single governor to oversee Afrin in a bid to impose a more orderly and unified model of administration in the region. Furthermore, Turkey hopes that the installation of a single governor will facilitate closer cooperation between Ankara and Afrin's Syrian National Army (SNA)-affiliated councils.
Turkish-backed factions in the occupied Afrin region continued their clashes throughout the month, resulting in the loss of many militiamen in sporadic skirmishes. This ongoing conflict involves specific factions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ex-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, in the region and the Syrian National Army (SNA). Within these factions, various cliques and militias maintain deep rivalries that frequently escalate into violent clashes. In the most recent and deadliest clashes, factions affiliated with the HTS, including the Eastern Branch faction, Brigade 50 and the Shahba Rally, launched an attack on the SNA Second Legion. This violent escalation stems from the failure to reach an agreement on shared control of the strategically important al-Hamran crossing located in the town of Jarablus. The conflict eventually ended when neutral factions within the Turkish-backed opposition forces intervened. Therefore, fighting is expected to resume in the future as these factions continue to vie for control and the financial benefits that come with it.
According to a report by the NGO Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ), the Turkish government expelled 29,895 Syrian refugees and asylum seekers via the Tell Abyad, Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salameh border crossings. In 2022, President Erdogan announced plans to resettle 1 million refugees in northern Syria, including areas historically inhabited by Kurds, despite the ongoing conflict and amid growing anti-refugee sentiment in Turkey. While the Turkish government claims that these returns to Syria are voluntary, numerous reports suggest that many refugees have been expelled by force or under duress. Since Ankara launched repatriation measures in 2019, the total number of returnees has reached around 540,000. Meanwhile, Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler said in a recent interview that Ankara will not withdraw forces Turks from northern Syria.
