Kurdistan Human Rights Network

Kurdish political prisoner Keyvan Rashozadeh continues to be denied medical treatment for injuries sustained as a result of torture by prison authorities, as he enters the seventh day of his hunger strike in solitary confinement at Orumiyeh Central Prison. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that despite his injuries, Rashozadeh has been denied access to medical services on the orders of Peyman Khanzadeh,...

The authorities in Orumiyeh Central Prison have recently increased pressure and torture on prisoners after more than 800 prisoners signed an open letter calling for the removal of Peyman Khanzadeh, the head of the prison. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learnt that on 3 March, Akbar Maheri, the head of Section 1-2, and several prison guards severely beat two prisoners, Towhid Ghaznavi and...

Kurdish political prisoner Shahin Gallehdar took his own life today due to the pressure and torture by the Ministry of Intelligence, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned. Gallehdar, 50, from the village of Haki in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan Province, was serving a two-year sentence in Orumiyeh Central Prison. The prisoner hanged himself in the political and religious prisoners' ward today after being transferred several...

More than five months have passed since the arrest of eight Kurdish civilians in Bukan, West Azerbaijan Province, and Baneh, Kurdistan Province, raising concerns about their well-being and the lack of information about their situation. The detainees, including Aboubakr Mamzadeh, Ahmad Mamzadeh, Javanmard Mam-Khosravi, Soran Ghassemi, Jalil Mowloudi, Rizgar Baba-Miri, Kaveh Salehi, and Pezhman Soltani, were taken to the Ministry of Intelligence detention centre in...

The detained Kurdish civilians Musa Esmaeili and Peyman Galvani have been tortured to death over the past two days in the Ministry of Intelligence detention centre in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan province, north-west Iran. Esmaeili, a 31-year-old father of two, was arrested by security forces on 7 May in the village of Pasveh in Piranshahr, West Azerbaijan province, and taken to the Ministry of Intelligence detention...

The Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) took the detained reporter of Kurdpress News Agency in Qorveh named Ziba Omidifar to the Kowsar Hospital in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province, on 15 December after torturing her for a week. The IRGC intelligence agency arrested Omidifar a week earlier and took her to the detention centre of the security institution in Sanandaj. Reportedly, the Kurdish journalist...

A Kurdish rapper and singer named Saman Yasin (Seydi), who is held in Tehran's Evin Prison on charges of "enmity against God" (moharebeh), has been subjected to severe physical and mental torture to make a confession on TV. The tortures the artist was subjected to include being kept in a very cold place for three successive days, severe beatings and being thrown from a height. On...

A young Kurdish man arrested by Iranian police on "drug-related" charges in Tehran on 7 April, has lost his life suspiciously in a police detention centre. The family of the 25-year-old Milad Jafari, from Kermanshah in western Iran, claimed that their son had lost his life due to "torture". "Milad Jafari was violently arrested by officers of the Criminal Investigation Department on 7 April, along with...

15 human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, Frontline Defenders, Article 19, Together against the Death Penalty (EPCM), Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) and 10 national NGOs, have issued a statement requesting international bodies such as the UN to take necessary action to stop the Iranian government’s harassment and persecution of the Iran Atrocities (Aban) Tribunal witnesses and their families. Since November 2021, after the first...