Kurdistan Human Rights Network

Kurdish political prisoners in Orumiyeh Central Prison, West Azerbaijan Province, have been subjected to severe ill-treatment and torture by prison guards, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned. Shaker Behrouz, who had previously been sentenced to death for “armed insurrection” (baghi) but whose sentence was overturned in 2023, began a hunger strike on 18 April in protest at a new case against him. The...

The Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran has sentenced Saman Yasin, a Kurdish rapper from Kermanshah, Kermanshah Province, to five years of exile imprisonment in Babak, Kerman Province, after one year and seven months of detention. Originally sentenced to death for "enmity against God" (moharebeh), Yasin's sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court on the grounds of flaws in the investigation, leading to a retrial in...

Jamal Mardani, a 54-year-old prisoner from Miandoab, West Azerbaijan Province, was executed on 21 April for drug-related offences in Kerman Central Prison, Kerman Province. The prisoner was transferred to solitary confinement for the execution on 19 April. Mardani, a father of four from the village of Gug Jalu in Miandoab, was arrested about four years ago.

Prison guards and security officers raided the political and religious prisoners’ ward in Orumiyeh Central Prison today, destroying prisoners’ belongings and beating Kurdish political prisoners Keyvan Rashozadeh and Kamran Ghassemi. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that that around 10 guards and prison officials took part in the raid, which was ordered by the prison director, Peyman Khanzadeh, citing the presence of mobile...

Kurdish prisoners of conscience Arash Gholizadeh and Ardavan Tahourian, who have separately gone on hunger strike in Orumiyeh Central Prison, in West Azerbaijan Province, are demanding access to medical treatment and the right to temporary leave. Gholizadeh, a Kurdish religious prisoner from Orumiyeh, who is in the third year of a 10-year sentence, began his hunger strike on 15 March, in protest at being denied...