Below is an article published by Medya News:

The Islamic Republic of Iran has launched a new agency called Kurd Press. Officially the news agency will report on regional and international events.

This is a new step in the Islamic Republic’s efforts to push back the impact that Kurdish media outlets, run by opposition parties, have in Iranian Kurdistan. The current regime attempts to change the Kurdish people’s views of the Islamic Republic by launching this news agency.

Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance is funding the new news agency and the agency “will work within the framework of the Islamic Republic”.

The regime is worried that coverage of daily human rights violations and oppression of the Kurdish people is strengthening the Kurdish opposition. Besides launching the news agency, the regime is continuing to actively support and empower extremist Islamic groups in Iranian Kurdistan.

These extremist groups have been given free leeway to organize and conduct their activities in Kurdistan in order to hinder Kurds to join Kurdish opposition parties. Some of these groups’ only task is to portray Kurdish political parties as enemies of Islam.

The support that Kurdish opposition parties enjoy in Kurdistan is such a pressing issue to the ruling elite that it has even become an issue that the hardliners and the reformists fight about.

Before last years presidential election, the reformists’ faction of the Islamic Republic accused the hardliners of strengthening the party by perusing violent policies in Kurdistan. Apparently the regime has been convinced that a mixture of violence and soft power will weaken Kurdish opposition parties.