Kurdistan Human Rights Geneva Thank you, Madame President. The causes and scale of hate speech and violence in The Islamic Republic of Iran against the Kurdish people and other minorities are inherent to the inception of the Islamic Republic. On the 19th of August 1979, Ayatollah Khomeni, the then leader, in an incendiary and dehumanizing rhetoric, declared a Holy War against Kurdish people and framed their cause as anti-Islam and antirevolutionary, because they were simply for a secular and democratic state. Since then, the Kurds are stigmatized, marginalized, and excluded from any participation in public life, and perceived and treated as a hazard group by the State and its own online and offline media. In practice, criticizing Iran’s leaders in public is considered as a blasphemy and possibly death penalty according to Iran’s vague and abusive domestic legislations. While the article 20 of ICCPR prohibits incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, Iran’s domestic laws promote violence and hate speech, and the perpetrators are often promoted. In February 2020, Kasen Darabi, who was convicted for the Iranian-state sponsored assassination of four Kurdish leaders in Berlin in 1992, and who ended up 15 years behind German bars, published a book of memoirs describing the Mykonos restaurant’s assassinations in Berlin. His book entitled the Ten Hall’s Painting was promoted as book of the year in Iran, and he was personally rewarded by Iran’s president Rouhani. Madame President, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, where the perpetrators of hatred and violence are promoted, fighting hate speech, xenophobic rhetoric and incitement to hatred against minorities needs more investigation and monitoring. Thank you very much.