The six-year prison sentence of the Kurdish environmental activist Arman Ghafouri, issued by the Marivan Revolutionary Court last February, has been reduced to one year by the Court of Appeal in Sanandaj, a source told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
The verdict has been verbally served on the activist’s lawyer, and Ghafouri must report to the Marivan Prison Execution Bureau in the coming days.
The Intelligence Department of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) arrested Ghafouri on 16 July 2018 who was finally transferred to Marivan prison after three months in solitary confinement.
Concerns had been raised over Ghafouri’s life since no information was available on his status following his arrest. He was eventually released from the Marivan Prison on bail until his trial day on 10 December 2018.
The activist had been also arrested earlier along with 10 other civil activists following a protest rally against the Turkish army’s raid on the Kurdish areas of Syria, known as Rojava, on 12 March 2018, but he was released two days later on a bail of five million tomans. Ghafouri has also been sentenced to six months in prison and 20 lashes for “disturbing public order” at Branch 4 of Marivan Criminal Court.
