Where is the Flag of Kurdistan Emoji?

A flag is a sign, signal, or symbol representing a country, group, or nation. While other countries and big groups such as LGBTQ+ have their flags in the international keyboard of emojis, the flag of Kurdistan has never been included. The purpose of this article is to dive deeper into the Kurdish struggles, including petitioning for the flag of Kurdistan in emojis database.
The main aim of a petition for the flag of Kurdistan emoji is to raise awareness that Kurdish people exist, with a population of more than 63 million across the globe. However, there is a significant lack of unification and dedication to the Kurdish struggle for recognition at the United Nations.
One of the fundamental human rights includes the right of having an identity. Article 6 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law”, regardless of whether they are citizens or immigrants, students or tourists, workers or refugees, or any other group. The decision to not recognize or include the nation of Kurdistan with its own flag emoji is an obvious form of digital discrimination.

The Kurds have suffered years of oppression, ethnic cleansing and persecution on the grounds of their ethnicity and have fought long and hard (the majority of Kurds are still encountering this) to preserve their Kurdish identity. Therefore, the non-existence of the flag of Kurdistan on universal keyboards is equal to the non-existence of their identity in the world. This non-existence led to a realization that the digital world has completely alienated them. Kurds have noticed the significant impact of the internet and made use of the 21st century digital tools such as petitioning and creating hashtag storms on social media, obtaining support and continuing to share awareness of their struggle in hopes of getting an emoji of the flag of Kurdistan. Therefore, the Kurdish people need to have this emoji as a symbol of unity and existence. The flag of Kurdistan emoji will also attract big social media platforms and influencers, widening the scope in which Kurdistan is recognized in the digital world.

We are the Kurdish People

It all started five years ago with a 24-year-old university graduate: Bedirxan, from the Kurdish city of Zaxo in the Kurdistan region, also known as Southern Kurdistan amongst the Kurds. The idea was to gather thousands of votes of Kurds all around the world and then write a proposal to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and Unicode to request for the flag of Kurdistan. The petition was submitted at www.change.org/KurdistanEmoji , the hashtag #KurdistanEmoji is also an active hashtag on various social platforms that demands for the emoji of the flag of Kurdistan to become available on the universal keyboards. With enough attention and signatures, Bedirxan’s hope is that the existence of the flag of Kurdistan becomes a crucial step towards worldwide recognition of the identity of over 63 million Kurds.

It was a creative and important step indeed, but Bedirxan’s optimism was initially one-sided as many dismissed the possibility of it succeeding. However, this did not stop Bedirxan. He was determined and continued working towards his hope as he believed that with faith and determination, anything is possible.
Bedirxan was once a contributor at Kurdish Wiktionary and Wikipedia to develop and improve the Kurdish language online and to create and edit thousands of articles. He is also a Member of the Kurdish Crowdsource Community who voluntarily helped enlarge the Kurdish language on Google translation.
He highlighted that "I have always been eager to translate popular websites to Kurdish. So I started a project that aimed to translate an open-source chess server 'Lichess' to two Kurdish dialects: Kurmanji and Sorani, and with the help of many Kurds who share common hobbies, we have translated it to Kurdish."
Bedirxan is excited to see the flag of Kurdistan emoji soon. He is thrilled that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has recognised the Kurdistan region which is one step away from getting the flag of Kurdistan emoji and Kurdish language on all of the common operating systems.
While the flag of Kurdistan emoji is not the only case that will make a change, it will evidently bring a big community together and raise awareness on the existence of a nation with its own distinct flag and language.
Starting alone has been challenging for Bedirxan. Recently, he stated that he has honorably chosen to partner up with the House of Kurds (Platform of the Kurdish People) on the grounds of their common goal: to have the people of the world recognize the Kurds. Bedirxan and the House of Kurds have brought together thousands of Kurds who shared and signed the above mentioned petition and also the petition of global recognition at www.change.org/KurdPeople alongside the hashtag of #Kurd4UN.

For any PR enquiries please feel free to contact: pr@houseofkurds.org