In June Sirwan Nezhawi, a 29 year old Kurdish political prisoner from Sardasht, called KHRN from Tabriz prison and gave the latest updates on his situation. He was executed by the Iranian authorities two months later in August. The following is the informations which he himself and his close relatives had provided to KHRN.

Sirwan Nezhawi was arrested on 5 July 2011 a couple of months after his engagement ceremony. He was arrested by the Oroumiyeh intelligence office agents in Karaj and was transferred right away to Oroumiyeh intelligence office detention facility in order to be interrogated. Two days later, Ibrahim Isapoor, one of Sirwan’s friends was also arrested in Sardasht.

Both friends were interrogated and tortured for 45 days by the authorities on charges of cooperation with PJAK.The Iranian government funded English Channel Press TV released a video-confession of Sirwan and Ibrahim recorded under duress.

The two friends were then transferred to Mahabad prison and were sentenced to death on 11 April 2012 by judge Javadikia in Mahabad revolutionary court on charge of cooperation with PJAK. Sirwan and Ibrahim were transferred to Oroumiyeh central prison and their death sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court of the Islamic Republic. Inside the prison, the two friends were terrorised and intimidated by the agents of the intelligence service.

They went on a hunger strike for 33 days in ward 12 of the prison. The authorities became more aggressive and threatened them with their sentence bring carried out earlier. They were transferred from ward 12 to unknown location with four other Kurdish political prisoners on 18 February 2015. The other four prisoners were Younes Aghayan, Saman Nasim, Ali and Habib Afshari.

All the six prisoners were divided into two special cars designed to carry the high-risk criminals. Ali and Habib Afshari in one of the cars and the other four in the second car were transferred to a safe-house of intelligence ministry. There, they were divided again into three groups of two. Ali and Habib Afshari were transferred to Qazvin prison, Saman Nasim and Younes Aghayan to Zanjan prison and Sirwan Nezhawi and Ibrahim Isapoor to Tabriz central prison.

Sirwan and Ibrahim were handcuffed and shackled as soon as they had arrived in Tabriz prison due to direct order from Intelligence ministry. They were deprived of having any visit or contact with their families. The two prisoners had started a 11 days long hunger strike in protest to the mistreatment. After 70 days of being held in cells of special ward under very harsh conditions including no right to take shower which resulted in a significant loss of weight, Sirwan was transferred to ward 9 and Ibrahim to drug related prisoners’ ward. Both wards are known as being the most filthy spots in Tabriz prison.

In the second half of June Ibrahim Isapoor was transferred back to Oroumiyeh central prison but Sirwan was still kept in ward 9 of Tabriz prison. Meanwhile, Sirwan was under pressure and had difficulties to communicate with outside of the prison in order to inform his relatives about his situation. Abruptly, he was transferred to solitary confinement cell on August 8 and the following day his death verdict was enforced without informing either his lawyer or family. Sirwan was deprived of the right of last visit before being hanged.

Sirwan’s family had gone to take the corpse back in order to hold the funeral ceremony. The family were referred to the public cemetery to take the corpse. Sirwan’s family had taken the corpse from the cemetery and travelled back towards Sardasht that on the way at one of the checkpoints close to Rabat a convoy of the intelligence office cars stopped the family and fetched Sirwan’s corpse forcefully and by threatening and transferred the corpse to unknown location. After a few hours at 2 A.M. the family were called and asked by the intelligence office of Sardasht to show up at the intelligence office. They were asked to not hold any public funeral ceremony. Sirwan’s corpse was buried in the cemetery of Aghalan village by the presence of only his family members and a high number of intelligence agents. The family was warned that they are not allowed to hold any ceremony in any mosque but at his parents’ house and only for the closed relatives.