Arrest
Omid Saeidi (Mohammad Saeidi) was arrested along with three other Kurdish civilians on 8 October 2019 by security forces in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan Province, and, was taken to the youth ward of Orumiyeh Central Prison after a month of interrogation at the Ministry of Intelligence detention centre in Orumiyeh.
Judicial Process
In December 2020, he was sentenced to 10 years and one day of imprisonment by Branch Two of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh on charges of “acting against national security” through membership in the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan.
Current Status
In mid-2023, he was transferred from Orumiyeh Central Prison to Khoy Prison.
Additional Information
– On 22 February 2020, Saeidi and six other Kurdish political prisoners, went on a hunger strike in protest against being held in the youth ward and demanded a separate room for political prisoners.
– In early April 2020, he went on another hunger strike with several other political prisoners in protest against their continued detention in the youth ward. After a week of hunger striking, he and the other strikers were moved to solitary confinement on the orders of prison officials.
– In November 2020, Saeidi and two Kurdish political prisoners, Keyvan Rashozadeh and Kamran Ghassemi, went on a dry hunger strike in protest against their uncertain status, pressure from the special office of the Ministry of Intelligence, and the non-observance of the principle of separation of crimes in the youth ward of Orumiyeh Central Prison.
– On 12 December 2021, he, along with 46 political prisoners, went on a week-long hunger strike to protest being moved to a new high-security ward for political prisoners in Orumiyeh Central Prison.
– On 4 July 2023, he sewed his lips together and went on a hunger strike in Khoy Prison to protest the refusal of the Orumiyeh office of the Ministry of Intelligence to grant him temporary leave.
Notes:
1. Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan: The Komala of Revolutionary Toilers of Iranian Kurdistan, known as Komala, a Marxist-Leninist organisation with Maoist inclinations, after nearly a decade of clandestine activities, publicly declared its establishment on 15 February 1979, simultaneously with the victory of the 1979 revolution.
In 1984, Komala and several other leftist Iranian groups founded the Communist Party of Iran (CPI), and Komala was renamed to Komala Kurdistan’s Organisation of the Communist Party of Iran.
In 2000, part of the party’s leadership and members, under a project entitled “Reviving Komala,” split from the CPI and reverted to their original name before the formation of the CPI; the Komala of Revolutionary Toilers of Iranian Kurdistan or Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan.
The Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan believes in social democracy and considers “establishing a federal government” the appropriate solution for the Kurdish issue in Iran. The central headquarters of this party is in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
