The violent crackdown Kurdish protests over the suspicious death of Farinaz Khosravani has led to the arrest of hundreds of protesters.

Multiple sources informed Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) that the Iranian intelligence services’ agents continue arresting people who had participated in those protests, the last of which took place more than two weeks ago.

At least 20 people were critically injured amid the protests and hundreds of Kurdish youths under the age of 20 were arrested, according to information obtained from several sources based in Mahabad and elsewhere in the Kurdish areas.

Aram Talaj, 19, was one of the young protesters injured during the protests.

One of his relatives told KHRN in a short interview that young Talaj is in a “critical state” in ICU at the Emam Khomein hospital in Oroumiyeh.

“The doctors claim that hisspinal cord had been seriously damaged and now the lower part of his body from his waist and down is paralyzed”, his relative said.

Reliable sources in Mahabad also said that Omid Tork, another injured protester, had sustained serious wounds to his eyes and that they are in danger of blindness.

The Mahabad sources said that the security forces arrested several injured protesters at the local hospitals and that any injured protester visiting hospitals will be immediately arrested, adding that this is why the injured protesters avoid going to hospitals for medical treatment although some of them are badly injured.

The detained have been kept in various detention facilities in Mahabad, Miandoab and Oroumiyeh.

The fates of many of the arrested protesters remain unknown across the prisons run by the Iranian intelligence services.

A group of protesters arrested in Mahabad and whose families have since not heard from them include Kaveh Enayati, Anvar Aboubakri, Foad Khaki, Ebrahim Gholamali, Saman Hariri, Mostafa Khdir, Mansour Mamadali, Sadegh Ahmadzadeh and Younes Melak.

Prison sources said that at least 68 of the arrestees were transferred to Oroumiyeh Central Prison on 17-18 May.

Some 41 of them were transferred to wards 3, 4, 14 and ward 13 known as the youth ward, while 27 of them were kept at the reception area, the sources said.

All the mentioned wards are known to be the worst of their kinds in Oroumiyeh prison and since December there hasn’t been any transfer of prisoners to ward 12, the political prisoners’ ward.

Names of those detainees are as follows:

Neat Goli, Hawre Soltani, Abdulrahman Jamshidi, Hassan Amini, Osman Aziz’zade, Milad Aziz’zade -Osman’s son- Karim Ashena, Anvar Dervish, Saber Alkidan, Akam Purali, Jafar Talaneh, Shaho Isaloo, Hiwa Saiedi, Reza Abbasi Asl, Foad Shamshiri, Siamand Mohammadzadeh, Bakhtiar Sheikhi, Pezhman Ghasemi, Ali Ashk Talkh, Alireza Pahlevani, Soleiman Sohrabi, Keivan Toutun, Edris Sedighi, Yoosef Farzadian, Sherko Sebili, Ahad Ghazi, Yaqoub Nouri, Ebrahim Ovaisi, Pezhman Demokri, As’ad Hooshang, Armin Hosseinpur, Pezhman Hosseinpur, Omid Karimi, Naser Niko and Ali Ebrahimi.

They are all accused of “disturbing public order”.

KHRN sources said that most of them have already been beaten or psychologically tortured to admit the accusation and give names of other protesters.

A source from the Sardasht border area said that the Kurdish activists arrested and released on bail following May 9 protests in the town of Sardasht include Monsieur Zahedi, Taher Ghasemi, Ali Maroofi, Reza Rezazade, Iraj Mohammadi, Mostafa Beitooshi, Hemin Maroofi, Fayegh Amini, Safa Hassanpur, Awat Hashemzade, Nahid Vafiri, Mohammad Khezri and Soheila Zobeiri.

Protests swept across the Kurdish region few days after the suspicious death of Kurdish chambermaid Farinaz Khosravani at Tara Hotel in the city of Mahabad.

Khosravani plunged from fourth floor of the hotel and locals suspected that she committed suicide to escape rape by an official of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

On 7 May a number of protests turned violent in Mahabad but kept spreading across almost all of the Kurdish cities and towns in Iran, leading to a state of emergency for Iranian forces deployed in the Kurdish areas.

The heavy-handed security has lessened now. However, the security forces continue arresting those who took part in the protests.