Mohsen Azizi was arrested without a judicial warrant by security forces on 13 July 2022 at his home in Oshnavieh, West Azerbaijan Province, and transferred to a security detention facility in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan Province.

He was provisionally released on bail on 24 July 2022. During his detention, he was denied family visits and access to legal counsel.

In December 2023, Azizi was sentenced to two years of imprisonment by Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Oshnavieh, presided over by Judge Mehdi Rezaei, on charges of “acting against national security” through membership of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI).

Azizi was arrested and taken to Oshnavieh Central Prison on 31 December 2023 to serve his sentence.

1. The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) was founded on 16 August 1945, with the aim of gaining autonomy for Iranian Kurdistan. According to the party’s charter, this political organisation, grounded in the “nationalist ideas and organizational structure of the Society for Kurdish Resurrection (KJK) and with a realistic and contemporary approach”, emerged as a modern entity in the political arena. KJK was the founder of the Republic of Kurdistan (22 January 1946 – 15 December 1946) in Mahabad. The republic lasted only 11 months, ending with an attack by the Iranian army, which executed its leaders, including Qazi Muhammad, the party leader and President of Kurdistan.

PDKI went through a period of armed struggle in the late 1960s, marked by internal party disputes, and ultimately, re-emerged as a political party on the eve of the 1979 revolution. Two of its leaders, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and Sadegh Sharafkandi, were assassinated by the Islamic Republic of Iran in Europe in 1989 and 1992, respectively. In 2006, due to heightened internal conflicts, the party split into two factions: the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (HDK). These two factions eventually announced their reunification on 22 August 2022, after 15 years of separation.

The party has declared its ultimate goal as “the establishment of a democratic-socialist society” and its strategic slogan as “securing the rights of the Kurdish people in Iranian Kurdistan within the framework of a federal democratic system in Iran”. The main headquarters of the PDKI is in Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq.