Press Release

Dr. Heshu Rahman today graciously accepted the position as Honorary Director of Outreach for Kurdish Communities spread out across Azerbaijan, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Dr. Rahman is an Iraqi Kurd from the city of Sulaimaniyah in northern Iraq. Graduating with degrees in Veterinary science and Microbiology in Iraq, she finally completed a Ph.D. and Post-Doctoral research work in Hematology and Clinical Pathology from Universiti Putra Malaysia. A scientific medical researcher (scholar citation), she has over 110 journal articles, 3 books, 3 co-authorships, 8 patents and 10 research awards to her name. The nanoZER is one of the products of her research.

She and her husband have been strong advocates of Kurdish Human Rights across the Kurdish Community spread out in Azerbaijan, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. In an informal conversation at an open event with ICHRRF recently (YouTube link), she described how the 40 million strong Kurdish community is a historical nation left without a state in the aftermath of colonial cartography in West and Central Asia. While most of them continue to live in their historical homelands divided by international borders, there are also significant expatriate communities in Europe, North America and Japan. The Kurdish community has a long and rich history, evident in the diversity of religious faiths and orientations, including Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Yezidi, Sunni Muslim, Shi'a Muslim, and a syncretic mix of these and other ideologies. Kurds also have an open, multilingual culture influenced by neighboring Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Russian.