What is your country of origin, the Rojalat region?
It is part of Iranian Kurdistan, with a population of between thirteen and fifteen million inhabitants. Sorani and Kurmanji are the two main dialects of the Kurdish. My city, Mariván, is four kilometers from the border with Iraq and is a militarized zone. There have been many movements in Kurdistan throughout history. A little further north, in Mahabad, the republic of Kurdistan was founded in 1946, which lasted eleven months. There are many political prisoners and many people have been executed. There you sit in the heart of Kurdistan, they all speak Kurdish in Mariván and in Mahabad, and they wear a Kurdish clothing.

But the administration is totally alien.
Yes, there are many entrepreneurs, but the administration is in the hands of the state, there has never been a Kurdish governor. The Iranian authorities, or Kurds by the Iranian Government, are the only authorities they send in Iran. Elections are held, but the government has to approve the candidates beforehand and there is no legalised political party. Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand, president of the Human Rights Association, has been in jail for nine years… He counts. Most of the Iranian political prisoners are Kurds and more than a thousand prisoners of eta have been executed last year.

In the square, in public?
By county, you can't do that in the Kurdish area, you do it inside the jails. Last year, for the first time, an attempt was made to execute a social prisoner in Sanandaj on the street, but he was prevented by the crowd, saving the prisoner. They no longer dare, because citizenship is alive and if it is done on the street there is a risk of a revolt. In some parts of Iran, however, they do.

What prompted him to leave Iran?
Iran is a radical Shia Islamic state, and there the woman is not human. It's a great prison for women, even more so if you're a Kurdish. We were in a secret women's organization, and the government raided us and arrested some of our members. In the event of being hit, in a five-minute trial without lawyers you await the death penalty or a long prison sentence. I just had to leave from one day to the next.

What position does the opposition have on the Kurds?The
Iranian opposition does not yet recognise the right of self-determination of the Kurds, who say that we want to end the country decisively. Meetings with the Kurds in exile have been numerous, but they do not even accept federalism. With most of us we don't have good relationships, with a few of us. There is everything, including the son of whom he was king, who intends to come to power one day, but that will not be possible.

Will he ever have been a Kurdish?
In Iraq there is much talk of the possibility of creating an independent state, but in Iraqi Kurdistan there is a very large lack of rights. I want a Kurdistan to fight for social justice, environmentalism and feminism, and society can be organised in those areas, even if it is not a state. Abdullah Ocalan said: “Kurdistan will never be free if women are not free.”

In the west, meanwhile, the image of a young guerrilla stands out.
It's a sexist look. The real image of the Kurdistan guerrillas, who for us are a beautiful woman, is not that of the big eyes and of a 19-year-old girl who looks like Angelina jolie. It is a Western vision, a great lack of respect. Why don't they talk about their ideology? Because you know that, according to that ideology, the physical aspect doesn't matter. In this struggle, we have lost thousands of honored women in the last 45 years. The deceased leader in Paris, Sakine Cansiz, Shirin Alam Holi hanged in Iran or the assassinated commander in Rojava, Arin Mirkan, who exploded to prevent the Islamic State from taking the mountain over Kobane. This fight that has given life to thousands of women is contrary to sexism. We are fighting this capitalist system that uses women as a doll.

Is there a lot of machismo in traditional Kurdish
society?70% of the work of Kurdish women has been contrary to machismo within our society to change the perspective of the population. Machismo is deeply rooted in society, every Kurdish man is a rumble in his house.

However, in the liberated areas, as in Rojava (Syria), society has changed a great deal in recent years.
Yes, it has changed profoundly and the level of organization is even more interesting than the victories of the armed struggle. In Turkish Kurdistan there are some commonalities controlled by the citizenry, there is a treasury commission, there is a justice commission, it is the people who make decisions about crimes. They are getting results in Rojava, but in Turkish Kurdistan they have been preparing all of this for many years. Most of the fighters fighting in Rojava are Kurds from Turkey and one-third are Iranians, who do not accept borders and who come together to fight. During the Battle of Sinjarre, the Rojava guerrillas moved to Iraqi Kurdistan and saved thousands of Yazidi who were on the mountain of the siege of Islamic State.