ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iran’s conservative presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi Friday tried to downsize the role of the current government in launching Kurdish language education in the country saying that God and the constitution supported minority rights.
“How come you think you were the one who allowed Kurdish language (to be taught)? God allowed it. The constitution has allowed that they use their language and their alphabet and their (traditional) outfits. The Kurds, the Baloochis and others have these rights granted by God and the government must ensure them,” said Raisi addressing the incumbent President Hasan Rouhani in their third and final debate in Tehran Friday.
Earlier during the blistering debate, which also included the four other presidential contenders, Rouhani said that if reelected, he will continue to work for the realisation of the rights of different religious and ethnic groups.
"Mr. Raisi, you can slander me as much you wish. As a judge of the clerical court, you can even issue an arrest order. But please don't abuse religion for power," Rouhani said at one point to his main hardline rival who is a judicial official and is widely predicted to become the country’s next supreme leader.
Although Article 15 of the Iranian Constitution allows Kurdish and other spoken languages in the country to be used as languages of study, it has been increasingly difficult to implement the article since the charter was approved in a referendum in October 1979.
Rouhani announced as part of his election campaign in 2013 that his government would implement the article although gradually.
Students in Iranian Kurdistan now have the option of choosing Kurdish as part of their high school and college coursework following a decision to include the language as an elective in schools across the ethnically Kurdish regions of Western Iran.
The University of Sanandaj, one of the largest Kurdish cities in Iran, has announced that a new department will admit students for further studies in Kurdish.
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