Iranian activists in Iraqi Kurdistan recount fleeing brutal crackdowns, now watch US-Israel strikes on homeland with anguish and resolve.
SULAIMANIYAH: Iranian activist Farhad Sheikhi fights back tears recalling the crack of gunfire and fellow protesters falling under a hail of bullets. Having fled to Iraq, he now watches from afar as American and Israeli strikes pound his country.
“I literally saw hell,” said the 34-year-old Iranian Kurd in Sulaimaniyah, showing photos of bodies on bloodied ground during recent anti-government protests. His biggest worry today is for his family’s safety back home, relying on a friend who only occasionally gets online for news.
Returning to Iran is no longer an option for Sheikhi, whose dream is to finish law studies in Germany. He said people inside Iran are now more cautious, struggling with worsening conditions and mourning the heavy price paid during recent protests.
He cannot lose hope that a social revolution will one day allow his return, but for now the risk is too great. After the January crackdown, Sheikhi fled to Iraqi Kurdistan fearing arrest and torture, having been jailed three times and tortured during the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests.
Aresto Pasbar was also part of the 2022 protests when shotgun pellets left him blind in one eye. After five surgeries, he fled to Turkey and later obtained asylum in Germany in 2023 with help from a human rights organisation.
When the war broke out, he left Germany to join Iranian Kurdish rebels in Iraqi Kurdistan, unable to remain in comfort while watching his people be oppressed. Wearing traditional Kurdish fatigues, he is fully aware he may never see his wife and two daughters again.
Before leaving, he told his family to stand for their rights even if he dies. In 2005, Amina Kadri’s husband Ikbal fled Iran to escape political persecution, hoping Iraqi Kurdistan would be safe.
Fifteen years later, Ikbal was killed near the Iraqi-Iranian border, with witnesses saying assailants shot him and dumped his body in a river before escaping toward Iran. Kadri accused Iran of being behind it.
Her ordeal continued when her eldest son was executed in Iran 53 days later, a killing she claims was a set-up. The 61-year-old homemaker now only wishes to see the Islamic republic fall for revenge for all those executed.
