Khomeini's 1979 Fatwa: A Turning Point in the Conflict Between Iran and Its Kurdish Minority

The event is still a source of pain and controversy in Iran. For many Kurds, August 19, 1979, is remembered as the day the Islamic Republic declared war on them, a day of betrayal and immense suffering. They see the fatwa as an act of religious and ethnic persecution, an attempt to forcibly impose a new political and social order on a population that did not consent to it.