On Thursday, 20 January, 2011, approximately 2,000 persons marched from the public park to the City Center, calling on "the masses of Suleimaniyah, and all those who are demanding freedom and justice wherever you are" to demonstrate against the Iranian government’s "intense attack against the Iranian people in general and the Kurdish people in particular, and activists."

Since the first of this year, the Iranian government has executed at least sixty-five individuals.  According to Aaron Rhodes, a spokesperson for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, "the execution of Kurdish activists without fair trials and following torture increasingly appears to be a systematic politically motivated process."

Thursday’s demonstration called for "all international organizations for human rights to not be silent and to not allow the State of Iran the exercise of this heinous crime.”  The march, apparently organized without a permit, was led by a flatbed truck.  A figure depicting a Kurdish man hung from a scaffold on the truck.  Organizers of  the demonstration also wore red nooses around their necks.  As the truck led the procession to the City Center, a group of Civil Activities Police, armed with clubs, guns, helmets, and riot shields began flanking the march, forming a barrier between the marchers and those watching the event, although the march was both well controlled and non-violent.

At one point during the rally at the city center, as the large crowd chanted "Azidi! Azidi!"  (Freedom! Freedom!), someone removed the noose from the Kurdish effigy on the scaffold.  Organizers removed theirs as well, hung the nooses from the scaffold, and set them afire. During a moment of silence called for by the march’s organizers, most of the crowd, heads bowed, raised their hands to the sky and created the peace sign, adding a sense of solemnity to the bustling center.

At least fourteen Kurdish activists remain on death row in Iran.

For video of the demonstration, click here.