Kurdish civilian from city of Van in Kurdistan region of Turkey
Detention date: 10 March 2008
Charged with: Membership of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK)
Sentence: 30 years in prison and internal exile in Kashmar Prison
Current Status: Imprisoned in Kashmar Prison
Shaker Baghi, a Kurdish civilian of Turkish nationality, was arrested by the forces of the Ministry of Intelligence in Sanandaj on the Sanandaj-Marivan road on 10 March 2008. The officers butt-stroke him to the head, causing him to lose consciousness, and took him to the detention centre of the office of intelligence ministry in Sanandaj.
After several months of interrogation in the security detention centres of the Ministry of Intelligence and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Sanandaj and Kermanshah, Branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Sanandaj, presided over by Judge Hassan Babaei, sentenced Baghi to 30 years in prison and internal exile in Kashmar Prison in Khorasan-e Razavi province on the charge of “membership in the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK)”.
As his lawyer appealed against the given sentence, the public prosecutor of Sanandaj also objected the verdict and demanded the most severe punishment for him. The sentence was eventually upheld in Branch 4 of the Court of Appeal of Kurdistan province, and Shaker Baghi was exiled to Kashmar Prison from Sanandaj Central Prison in mid-August 2009.
While it is already difficult for the family of the political prisoner, who live in the city of Van in the Kurdistan of Turkey, to visit him, the security and judicial institutions in Kurdistan province have been further sabotaging their possible visit.
In 2015, while the family had travelled from Van to Kashmar after two years, prison officials prevented them from seeing their son. The visit was eventually held by the mediation of the judge of the Sanandaj Enforcement of Judgement Court. However, in the middle of the visit, prison officials took the family out and interrupted the meeting.
