Bahman Orami is one of the killed members of PJAK, whose story of deception and death was recently raised by the Human Rights Watch of Iranian Kurdistan.
In an interview with our local observers, his brother made important points about his brother’s fate and the exact cause of his death. He, who himself works as a miner, stressed that Bahman had no motive to join any armed groups, and that PJAK must have deceived him.
While complaining about PJAK’s approaches, he added: “If a teenager gets abducted, dies, and his body is left in the mountains, how does this serve the Kurds?”
“PJAK has a long campaign of sneaking up upon and extorting production units in the border areas, mostly those businesses that lie outside of town premises,” he told our observers.
“Poultry, livestock, mines, agricultural businesses are among the victims of extortion. In short; any company that is located outside of town and can be accessed relatively unseen will get a visit by these groups sooner of later. Some of them are forced to pay large sums of ‘support money’, others refuse to do so and have to close their company as a result. The workers of the company will also become unemployed..”
“For this reason, locals and investors do not dare to invest in a company that is located in an unsafe location. The people living in these regions struggle to find a proper job, and peace.”
“One night, PJAK has sent some of its forces to the poultry farm where Bahman was working, they came there to collect what they call ‘support money’, or what you and me would call extortion. They have deceived my brothers with some fairytale about money, Europe, land of his own. They always promise these youngsters a better life.”
“My brother was a young boy, following job education. I am sure he could not understand the dangers he got himself into, and was deceived.”
Read more:
Bahman Orami; Child soldier victim of PJAK terrorism
“We tried to follow up on him several times,” he told our observers when asked if they had tried to locate Bahman. “But we did not reach a conclusion. They deceived a teenager! Why didn’t they come to me instead, after all he was a child and I was already grown up? I do not know how he lived there in the dark and the cold. And finally, PJAK media said that Bahman had been killed. No corpse, no photo or film, no bones…”
“This betrayal of PJAK has made our lives bitter. My parents were devastated… Why should our teenagers be killed in the PKK’s war with Turkey? What has Turkey got to do with us Iranian Kurds, that live almost thousand kilometres away from the Turkish border? I’ve never seen a Turk in my life!”
“Where is Bahman’s body? From which PKK institution should we follow up on my brother’s remains? Why do PJAK officials not answer?”
It is worth mentioning that since the announcement of Bahman Orami’s death in its affiliated media channels, his family has not seen his body, and thus cannot confirm the claim of PKK and PJAK that he was really killed in the war with Turkey.
The family fears Bahman might still be alive, and has only proclaimed dead so the family would give up on its efforts to locate the boy.
