The family of Edris Feqhi, a member of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) who was detained by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seven months ago, gathered in front of the office of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan province, to inquire about his condition on 21 February.
Feqhi had been arrested in a village of Bukan, West Azerbaijan province, as he was wounded.
A source spoke to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) and said: “Security and law enforcement officers present at the scene ignored their demand and detained Edris’ mother, Fatemeh Maghsoudi – who wanted to set herself on fire as a sign of protest – and several other family members for several hours”.
They were taken to a police station near the IRGC detention centre and were interrogated for several hours, said the source.
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.
Three days earlier, Feqhi’s family had gone from Sanandaj, Kurdistan province, to Orumiyeh to obtain information about the condition and fate of their son.
The family has not had any communication with Feqhi for the past seven months.
According to the source, during the past two days, the security agents of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC once informed the family that Feqhi had been killed during a clash with the IRGC forces and that they would deliver his death certificate to the family in the following days.
Separately, one of the security interrogators of the IRGC’s intelligence service told his mother and family members at the police station that Feqhi was alive and was being held in the IRGC detention centre.
The source added: “Previously, in early December 2021, after Edris’ family went to the Orumiyeh courthouse, his mother protested against the lack of accountability of the authorities and lack of information on her son’s fate and said that she would set herself on fire in front of the court. But the investigator of branch 6 of the investigation office of the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office had indifferently responded that there was no problem and that firefighters and ambulances would be on site after she attempted to burn herself.”
On 28 September 2021, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (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 the Bukan on 24 July 2021, was in fact alive.
The KHRN report showed that Feqhi was being held in the detention facility of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC.
According to the findings of the KHRN, Feqhi managed to hide after a clash between members of the PJAK and forces of the IRGC.
Two days later, forces of the IRGC’s Hamzeh Seyyed al-Shohada base 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 recent months have seen him in the detention centre’s infirmary.
Background
On 24 July, 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, 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, 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.
