Director of General Board for Kurdistani Areas Outside the Region, Fahmi Burhan welcomes the decision of the High Committee for the Implementation of Article 140, which requires restoring land to the Kurds and Turkmens in the disputed territories.

The director hoped that the Arabization contracts will be canceled, in an interview with KurdSat. The contracts have denied the rights of Kurdish farmers to farm their lands in the area.

He added that they support any efforts and decisions that lead to the return of land to Kurds, Turkmens and all indigenous communities of Kirkuk.

They had been confiscated by the fall of the Ba'ath regime for whatever reason and given to others, the director noted.

He said the directive of the High Committee for the Implementation of Article 140 is a good step and hope that the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture to work seriously on it and go into effect.

General Board for Kurdistani Areas Outside the Region is a KRG department responsible for monitoring the situation of the disputed territories between the Kurdistan region and the federal government.

Shaqlawa district in Erbil is considered one of the oldest Christian-inhabited places in the Kurdistan region. The cities have old and new churches for Christians. 

The Betirma neighborhood is a predominantly Christian Street in the city, as they have lived there for over 18 centuries. Shaqlawa Muslims and Christians enjoy friendly relations and would participate in each other’s festivities and funerals. Every year the Christians in Shaqlawa celebrate Christmas with many activities. 

The Betirma Neighborhood in Shaqlawa were most Christians live

"We are from Shaqlawa and were born here, and there is no difference between us and our Muslim brothers and sisters, we attend each other’s funerals and celebrations, and we are all like siblings," a Christian woman in Shaqlawa told KurdSat English.

There are no differences between us, we are all siblings, and we, as Kurds of Shaqlawa, have no problem at all, but the public services in the city do not meet our needs, a Shaqlawa Muslim said. 

Following the ISIS onslaught on parts of Iraq, many Iraqi Christians left the country for Europe or elsewhere, but most of those who live in the Kurdistan region chose to stay in their native homes as it offers them security and prosperity, commentators say. 

News of the Islamic Republic disbanding its morality police went viral yesterday as it quickly put the pieces together for the situation in the protest-hit country.  The morality police are usually cited as the main drive behind the months-long unrest; however, news of its abolition was a wrong interpretation of a statement from Iran prosecutor general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri.

Montazeri said that the Guidance Patrol wasn't Judiciary's business, but the police's, the police launched it and ended it themselves. The police patrol to monitor the hijab code is a program launched by the reports to the interior ministry's police department. Iran's top prosecutor seemed to distance himself from the Guidance Patrol, the eschewed police program that has sent tens of thousands of Iranians to the streets.

New York-based Iranian historian, and Iran affairs expert Arash Azizi tweeted, "There is some evidence that some inside the regime are debating whether to relax, change, re-package or do something to the Hijab laws although Khamenei is very unlikely to concede anything on this front."

"Montazeri did say they launched it and they shut it themselves so this is why the world media has been quick to report that the GP has been shut," the Azazi added.

 

Azizi also notes the state media worked to backtrack on the issue. "Although the Berlin Wall did also come down based on an official uttering something in the middle of a presser!"

Parliament Member of the Domestic Affairs Committee Jalal Rashidi Koochi said, "I have heard that the Guidance Patrol will have no place in the new plan being prepared by the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution," Azizi reported.

The dissolution, if were true, could have encouraged protestors to persist in protesting, creating the belief that demonstrations would force the regime to further concessions, but that is precisely what Tehran works to avoid. Protests would lead nowhere; the Islamic Republic wants to remind people.