Kurdish prisoner of conscience Iraj Sofi-Mohammad has been on hunger strike since yesterday in protest against his transfer from Mahabad open prison to the prison’s internal ward.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that Sofi-Mohammad’s transfer was ordered by the Mahabad Public Prosecutor.
Security forces arrested Sofi-Mohammad in Mahabad in early autumn of 2019.
After initial interrogation, he was transferred from the Ministry of Intelligence detention centre in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan province, to the city’s central prison.
In May 2020, Branch Two of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh, presided over by Judge Ali Sheikhlou, sentenced him to 15 years in prison on charges of “acting against national security” through “membership of religious extremist groups”.
The Supreme Court later overturned the sentence and commuted it to ten years imprisonment.
On 31 July 2021, Sofi-Mohammad went on hunger strike for 16 days in protest at the prison authorities’ opposition to his transfer to Mahabad.
After a few weeks, he was transferred to Mahabad open prison, where he has been a working prisoner ever since.
Sofi-Mohammad was also arrested in 2017, and sentenced to 18 months in prison by Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh.
In 2018, he was released from Orumiyeh Central Prison after serving his sentence.
