One year after the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) member Edris Feqhi was arrested and forcibly disappeared by Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) forces, concerns are mounting about his condition and fate.

The political prisoner’s mother says that she has not received any clear answers about his condition during the past year.

The family of Feqhi, who disappeared on 24 July 2021 after being wounded by the IRGC, have gone to the detention centre of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC in the Al-Mahdi base, the Ministry of Intelligence, and the court of Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan province, many times over the past year, but so far have received no detailed information.

In a video received by the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), Fatemeh Maghsoudi, the political prisoner’s mother, speaks on the first anniversary of her son’s enforced disappearance.

She says: “My son has been imprisoned Orumiyeh for a year. I go to the office of the intelligence ministry, to the court and to the prison, but they don’t give me a clear answer. Sometimes they say he is here, some days they say he is not here. They say go, we will call you, wait for us! I can’t bear this difficult situation anymore, I have no strength left. I have heart disease. I request human rights organisations to find my son for me. It was you who published the news that he was alive. Get him a lawyer so I can meet my son, talk to him, have him call me, know if he is alive or not and what happened to him.”

Earlier, on 21 February, some members of Feqhi’s family had 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 year, IRGC intelligence officers and the Orumiyeh court have presented contradictory scenarios every time in response to the requests of Feqhi’s 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 see 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.