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...

Soma Pour-Mohammadi, a Kurdish language teacher and a member of the board of directors of the Nozhin Socio-Cultural Association in Sanandaj, Kurdistan Province, has been sentenced to 10 years of exile imprisonment in Kermanshah Prison by Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Sanandaj on charges of "forming groups with the aim of undermining national security". The verdict comes after similar sentences were handed...

Kurdish civilian Akhtar Khanom Moradi died on 21 April as a result of injuries sustained from the detonation of unexploded ordnance from the Iran-Iraq war in the village of Gur-e Sefid in Gilan-e Gharb, Kermanshah Province. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that Moradi was injured on 20 April while collecting scrap iron and died the following day at Al-Zahra Hospital in Gilan-e...

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...

Iranian border guards opened fire on a group of kolbars in the Sardab border area of Baneh, Kurdistan Province, on 21 April, killing kolbar Shwana Ahmadpour. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that the border guards targeted the group of kolbars at close range and without warning. Two other kolbars were reportedly injured in the shooting and have been taken to a medical facility...