VAN, Turkey - There are some 1,500 Kurds from Iran who have sought asylum in the border province of Van, eastern Turkey. Those who talked to Rudaw say that they do not feel their rights are protected back home, and do not intend to return back as they will face even more persecution.

Yousif Ibrahim, his wife and his two daughters fled from Iran to Van about two weeks ago.

“It has been 10 to 12 days that I have been here,” Ibrahim said, “And if I ever go back, I will face problems, because the Iranian authorities do not respect humanity, and they do not even understand what humanity is. I will face problems, torture, and suffering. I will face all of these.”

His wife, Bayan Husseini, initially did not like her face to show up as she talked to Rudaw TV. Then she opened up, focusing on the difficulties the family face in Turkey.

“We are searching a lot, but they do not rent houses to Iranians. We do not speak the language, either. And we cannot work,” Husseini said.

A Kalhur Kurd who arrived in the city 20 days ago from Iran did not reveal his name, and chose not to show his face on TV for fear of reprisal against his family back in Iran.

He said that Iran does not want the world to know why the youth are leaving their country, and “therefore if anyone returns back, they will face torture, imprisonment, and beating,” he said. “Anything could happen [to you].”

Kamaran Osman said that he was arrested on different occasions in Iran as he was a member of a Kurdish party that is opposed to the state of Iran.

“I was known as a political person among the people, and I was arrested twice,” Osman said as he sat next to a portrait of the late leader of the Iranian Democratic Party of Kurdistan (KDPI) Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou.

He said he has been a member of the party since a decade ago.

“I was a member in a secret way inside the country in Rojhelat [eastern Kurdistan], but then it became public and I was arrested, and imprisoned by the intelligence services. That is why I was forced to flee abroad,” Osman claimed.

Ghassemlou, of the KDPI, was assassinated in Vienna in 1989 as he attended peace talks with Tehran in the Austrian capital. The party blamed Iran for his death.

Kamaran Osman speaks to Rudaw as he sits next to a portrait of the late leader of the Iranian Democratic Party of Kurdistan (KDPI) Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou.

The KDPI calls for greater national and cultural rights of the Kurdish population in Iran. It is an armed group mainly based in the Kurdistan Region in areas close to the Iranian border.

According to information obtained by Rudaw from the authorities in Van, there are about 12,000 Iranian asylum seekers in Van, many of them Persians. Some 1,500 are Kurds from Iran’s Kurdistan, also called eastern Kurdistan.