ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Kurdish teacher in Iran’s Kurdistan province was jailed on Saturday after being sentenced to five years in prison for “forming a group with the intent to disrupt national security,” a human rights watchdog reported.
Serveh Pourmohammadi, a Kurdish language instructor and active member of the Nojin Cultural Association, “has been taken into custody to begin serving a five-year prison sentence. She was transferred to the women’s ward of Sanandaj Central Prison - referred to by state institutions as a ‘Correction and Rehabilitation Center’,” the Oslo-based Hengaw Human Rights Organization reported.
She was arrested by security forces on January 29, 2023, for the first time at the Sanandaj courthouse while following up on cases of fellow Nojin Cultural Association members. After spending two weeks in detention, she was released on bail pending the conclusion of legal proceedings, according to Hengaw.
Nojin is an organization whose work includes teaching Kurdish language and literature.
Pourmohammadi was convicted in November 2023 by Branch 1 of the Sanandaj Revolutionary Court on charges of “forming a group with the intent to disrupt national security.”
Pormohammadi was initially sentenced to ten years in prison, which was later reduced to five years.
Zara Mohammadi, another Kurdish language teacher and co-founded of Nojin Cultural Association, was charged with “establishing a committee and group that is against the stability and security of the system” and sentenced to five years in prison in February 2021. She began serving her sentence in January 2022. She was released from jail the following month.
In February, Iran’s Parliament rejected a bill which allows the teaching of ethnic and local languages in schools, despite its grounding in Article 15 of the Constitution.
Article 15 of the 1979 constitution of Iran states that “the official language and script of Iran, the lingua franca of its people, is Persian. Official documents, correspondence, and texts, as well as textbooks, must be in this language and script. However, the use of regional and tribal languages in the press and mass media, as well as for teaching of their literature in schools, is allowed in addition to Persian.”
Iran’s official language is Persian, but the many different ethnic groups also speak a variety of languages.
In the predominantly-Kurdish western Iran (Rojhelat), many volunteers have opened centers for the Kurdish language. They call on Kurds to use their mother tongue in their daily life.
Many volunteer teachers and Kurdish instructors in Iran have arrested on charges of affiliation with opposition groups and allegedly threatening national security.
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