Soleyman Salek was arrested without a warrant by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the Piranshahr-Mahabad road in West Azerbaijan Province on 5 July 2022 and was transferred to the Ministry’s detention centre in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan Province.

On 3 August 2022, he was transferred to Naqadeh Prison in West Azerbaijan Province and then provisionally released on 13 August on bail of 30 billion rials (nearly 60,000 USD).

A week later, he was arrested after being summoned to the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Piranshahr and taken to the detention centre of the Ministry of Intelligence in Orumiyeh.

He was released on bail again after approximately one month.

During his detention, he was denied the right to meet with his family and to have access to a lawyer.

In May 2024, Salek was sentenced by Branch 102 of the Piranshahr Criminal Court Two to 10 years of imprisonment for “managing or membership of a group with the intent to disrupt national security” through carrying and possessing weapons, and to one year of imprisonment for “membership of opposition groups” (the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan).

Following an appeal, the sentence was reduced to seven years and six months of imprisonment.

On 24 August 2024, Salek was re-arrested after being summoned to the Enforcement of Judgments Office of the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office in Mahabad and was taken to the city’s prison to serve his sentence.

1. Article 498 of the Islamic Penal Code: “Anyone who, under any pretext or ideology, forms or runs a group, association, or an entity of more than two people, either inside or outside the country, under any name or title, with the aim of disrupting national security, and is not considered a ‘mohareb’ (enemy of God), shall be sentenced to imprisonment for a period of two to ten years.” According to Article 499 of the Islamic Penal Code: “Anyone who joins one of the groups, associations, or branches of the associations mentioned in Article 498 shall be sentenced to imprisonment for a period of three months to five years, unless it is proven that they were unaware of the group’s objectives.”

2. 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.

3. In cases where an individual accepts the verdict issued by the lower court and waives their right to appeal, they will be subject to the law of “submission to the verdict” and will receive a reduction in their sentence.