Kurdistan Human Rights Network

Photo from left to right; Farzad Samani, Sakar Eini, Mohammad Houshangi, Viyan Mohammadi

The third investigation branch of the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office in Mahabad has ordered today the extension of the temporary detentions of four Kurdish activists Viyan Mohammadi, Farzad Samani, Sakar Eini, and Mohammad Houshangi, who were arrested by IRGC forces in Tehran in the past months.

While Viyan Mohammadi’s detention is being extended for the first time, the three other activists are facing extensions of their detention for the sixth consecutive month.

The relatives of these activists confirmed the news to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), adding that the activists were being held in solitary confinement in the detention centre of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Al-Mahdi base in Orumiyeh and that security interrogators were pressuring them to make forced confessions.

Farzad Samani’s brother, Farouq Samani, also posted on his Instagram account that his brother had said during a brief meeting with his family that he was under pressure by interrogators to confess and accept the charges against him. He has also added that he has gone on a hunger strike on 30 May, in protest against these pressures and the extension of his detention.

Among these activists, Mohammad Houshangi, a resident of Javanrud, Kermanshah province, has so far been denied communication with his family. The Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC finally confirmed his arrest last week, after holding him for five months. It has also told the activist’s family, who have been going from Javanrud to Orumiyeh to follow up on their son’s detention, that they could not visit or call him for another month.

Farzad Samani, Sakar Eini, and Mohammad Houshangi were arrested by the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC in Tehran on 9 and 10 January during a wave of arrests of Kurdish activists and were transferred to detention centre of this security institution in the Al-Mahdi base in Orumiyeh.

Viyan Mohammadi, who is a civil activist and a management student, was arrested on 30 April by the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC at her home in Tehran, and was taken to the same detention centre in Orumiyeh.

Mohammadi’s husband, Faramarz Mohammadi, had been arrested in January in Tehran, during the wave of arrests of more than 120 Kurdish activists in various cities. He was transferred to the detention centre of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC in Sanandaj and was then temporarily released on a bail of 300 million Iranian Tomans – nearly 12,000 USD. With her husband’s arrest in January, Viyan Mohammadi was also summoned to the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC in Sanandaj and was subjected to interrogation.