We are starting a campaign to highlight the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) discrimination and neglect of Iranian refugees in Kurdistan.

The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees (IFIR), International organization of Iranian Refugees -IOIR, Middle Eastern Women and Society Organisation -MEWSO, Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation -IKWRO, Kurdish and Middle Eastern Women’s Organisation -KMEWO and Federation of Iraqi Refugees-FIR calls on all freedom-loving people, the civilised world, humanity, and millions of leftists and workers’, as well as all refugee rights organisations, humanitarian and progressive organisations, to take action against the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) discriminatory policy, which has stopped pursuing the cases of thousands of Iranian refugees living in inhumane conditions in Iraqi Kurdistan. 

According to a report sent to IFIR by the Refugee Community of East Kurdistan-Sulaymaniyah, which is made up of Iranian Kurdish refugees, some of whom fled to Iraq at the start of the war between Iran and Iraq, and later the Islamic Republic of Iran’s repression, oppression, deprivation of rights, and systematic discrimination of these Iranians, particularly the Kurdish nation, caused thousands to flee to the Kurdish region of Iraq.

Some of them were able to flee to other countries, but another ten thousand political refugees remain in a precarious situation in the Kurdish Region of Iraq. 

They are caught between the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government’s negligence on the one hand, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees on the other. The Iraqi and Kurdistan Regional Governments have both denied them the most basic human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UNHCR oversees preserving refugees’ rights and should seek to guarantee that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is implemented. 

The UNHCR has only supplied an asylum card to refugees in the Kurdish Region, which is deficient.  This asylum card must be renewed every year.  According to the UNHCR website, they will contact newly arrived refugees within 15 days. Many of our refugees, however, have had their applications pending for more than six months. The UNHCR set up certain conditions for refugees to get financial support for illness or surgery, but refugees who applied and completed all the requirements have not received assistance and the UNHCR are unwilling to reimburse them. The UNHCR clearly makes a distinction between refugees from Iran and other countries in terms of the assistance and services it provides. 

They suspect that asylum cards were issued to Iraqi people in order for them to acquire assistance and support from another country. 

Refugees are eligible for one-time cash aid, and they must now be notified by phone. If they are unable to locate the refugee, the system will record that the refugee failed to respond or receive it. 

The UNHCR’s actions come at a time when they are aware of the hardship endured by Iranian refugees at the hands of Iran’s ruthless regime. They suffer negative effects, including extreme inequality, unemployment, corruption, and the restriction of freedom. Even though these issues have compelled people under their supervision to live as refugees, they ignore them and follow the Western governments’ agenda. 

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a despotic regime that has oppressed its citizens for more than 40 years by carrying out executions, repression, and other atrocities. 

Following the murder of Mahsa Amini by the morality police in Iran on 16 September 2022 and the subsequent nationwide uprising inside the country, the Iranian regime has carried out a brutal crackdown. Hundreds of people have been killed, including 70 children. More than 18,000 people have been arrested and subjected to torture. Four protestors have been executed after sham trials. Many more are at risk of execution.  

We urge everyone to join us in speaking out against the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).  Please call on the UNHCR to: 

1. Put Pressure on the UNHCR in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region to assist Iranian refugees. Reimburse refugees who have been involved in traffic accidents or chronic illnesses or have undergone surgery and help them to earn a living.
   

2. 2. Due to a lack of asylum laws, all refugees in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region are denied access to their fundamental rights. They don’t have identification cards, and many of their children and grandchildren in Iraq are older than 40.

3. There is a risk of deportation for refugees because UNHCR is currently less concerned with renewing asylum cards and registering new refugees. Establish a transitional camp for newly arrived refugees in the Kurdistan Region and provide for their protection while they wait to receive their asylum cards and complete their initial administrative tasks.
   

4. Theamount of financial aid that was previously allocated for refugees is currently being given to Syrian refugees and Iranian refugees are deprived of it.
   

5. Some refugees have previously been accepted to be sent to a third country, but the UNHCR has issued them with new asylum cards on the grounds that their files have been lost. And they are now registered as new refugees with new asylum cards.​

6. Iranianrefugees are at risk of terrorism and organizations that prepare reports on refugees for UNHCR are under political pressure to hide the facts, and UNHCR itself is not exempt from this pressure. Therefore, we request that a group that can investigate and verify the facts be invited to visit the Kurdistan Regional Government to verify the facts behind the facts being conveyed. All facts are archived by Refugees Community of East Kurdistan – Sulaymaniyah (RCOEK-S) and can help uncover the truth.
   

7. 7. Thesecurity agencies cannot protect refugees from terrorism by Iranianstate teams, so moving to a country where their lives are safe is the demand of most refugees.
   

8. Pressure the Iraqi government to pass and implement the asylum law. Unless there is a refugee law in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, neither of them considers itself obliged to grant refugees the right to issue temporary passports.

We urge you to be the voice of Iranian refugees to reduce and eliminate their sufferings. 

  

-International Federation of Iraqi Refugees-IFIR 

-International organization of Iranian Refugees-BEMARZ 

-Kurdish and Middle Eastern Women’s Organisation –KMEWO 

-Middle Eastern Women and Society Organisation-MEWSO 

-Iranian and KurdishWomen’s Rights Organisation-IKWRO 

-Federation of Iraqi Refugees-FIR 

17/7/2023