Concerns grow over the fate of Edris Feqhi, a member of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), who was detained by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) nearly 20 months ago.

The PJAK member forcibly disappeared on 24 July 2021 after being injured by the IRGC.

The mother of the political prisoner said in a message that the security agencies have not given her a clear answer about her son during this period.

Feqhi’s family has been to the detention centre of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC at Al-Mahdi base, the Ministry of Intelligence, and the Orumiyeh Court in West Azerbaijan province, several times over the past year, but has not been given any detailed information.

Recently Feqhi’s mother, Fatemeh Maghsoudi, released a video and said: “I congratulate the Kurds, the mothers of the martyrs and the mothers of the political prisoners on the occasion of Newroz. It has been two years since I received any information about the fate of my son. When I go to Tehran, Orumiyeh or any other city, they tell me that he is killed and has not survived, and they say that they are not holding him in detention and then they say they are. Orally, they say they are holding him in detention, but then they say they are not. A few days ago, we went to the detention centre of the Ministry of Intelligence in Orumiyeh and they told us that he was there. They told us to get a letter from 113 [the intelligence ministry] to visit him and that his case was being investigated. When we went to 113, one of the officers there mocked and disrespected us and said, “Where is your son?” I ask human rights organisations and journalists to find my child so that I can visit him for five minutes. I swear to God that I am ill. For God’s sake, I ask human rights organisations and respectable journalists to find my child.”

Reportedly, the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC handed over Feqhi to the Ministry of Intelligence in Orumiyeh last summer after interrogating him.

His security interrogators continue to deny him any contact with his family or any visits from them.

In early September 2022, the Ministry of Intelligence in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province, summoned Maghsoudi and interrogated her for several hours over releasing a video on the first anniversary of her son’s enforced disappearance.

The interrogators told her that she had no right to wear a white scarf, known as the symbol of Kurdistan’s peace mothers, and travel to Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan province, to inquire about her child’s fate.

On 9 September 2022, Amnesty International said prosecutors and security and intelligence agents in West Azerbaijan province had “forcibly disappeared” the 36-year-old Kurdish political dissident Edris Feqhi since late July 2021.

On 21 February, some members of Feqhi’s family gathered in front of the office of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan province, to inquire about his condition.

The security and law enforcement officers present at the scene, disregarding their demands, detained the prisoner’s mother who wanted to set herself on fire as a sign of protest along with several other family members for hours.

The police forces took them to one of the police stations near the detention centre of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC and interrogated them for several hours.

They were eventually released after being forced to pledge not to gather again in front of the office of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC.

A plainclothes officer of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC met with the detainees at the police station and informed them that Feqhi was alive and being held in the detention centre of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC.

The officer told the family that they had no right to visit or contact Feqhi until his interrogation was completed.

Over the past two years, IRGC intelligence officers and the Orumiyeh court have presented contradictory scenarios every time in response to the requests of the Feqhi family to learn about his fate.

At first, they had announced that Feqhi was shot and killed by the IRGC forces and that they would “send his body photo and death certificate” to his family, but they have not provided any evidence to the family so far.

The court of Orumiyeh also told the family that it could not respond to them due to the sensitivity of the case and the pressure of the security agencies.

Former detainees claimed to have seen Feqhi

On 28 September 2021, the KHRN published a report saying that the evidence showed that the PJAK member, who was reported to have been killed during a clash between the forces of PJAK and IRGC near Bukan on 24 July 2021, was in fact alive.

The report said Feqhi was being held in the detention facility of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC.

According to the findings of the KHRN, Feqhi was shot in the leg by IRGC forces during the clash but had managed to hide. But later, the IRGC’s Hamzeh Seyyed al-Shohada base deployed a large number of forces to the area and arrested him wounded.

IRGC forces first transferred him to the security institution’s Arefian Hospital in Orumiyeh. They then took him to its detention centre.

He is currently being held in the public cell of the Haft-e Tir detention centre of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC in the al-Mahdi base in Orumiyeh.

He is in poor physical condition caused by severe injuries he had suffered and has not completed his treatment.

At least two people who have spent time in the same detention centre in the past year have seen him in the detention centre’s infirmary.

PJAK confirmed Feqhi‘s arrest by IRGC forces

On 24 July 2021, forces of the IRGC’s Hamzeh Seyyed al-Shohada base ambushed a group of PJAK members in the mountainous heights of the Alamabad village in Bukan, and a fierce clash took place between the two groups for several minutes.

On 27 July 2021, the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency reported that two members of a Kurdish party had been killed and one wounded member had been arrested, quoting the Hamzeh Seyyed al-Shohada base.

On 6 August 2021, the PJAK also confirmed that two of its members, Edris Feqhi, from Sanandaj, and Mohsen Ghaderi, from Bukan, had been killed in an armed clash with the IRGC near Bukan.

But after a while, PJAK issued another statement announcing that Mohsen Ghaderi was alive and that Feqhi had been arrested after being wounded by the Revolutionary Guards.