Two Kurdish detainees Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini and Mohammad Moradi have been tried in the past days on charges of “armed insurrection” (baghi), in Branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Mahabad, presided over by Judge Javad Gholami.
Conviction to “enmity against God” can lead to the death penalty according to the Iranian Islamic Penal Code.
Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini, a resident of Naqadeh, West Azerbaijan province, left the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and returned to Iran in 2017 after separating from the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI) and receiving safe-conduct from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). However, he was detained after a while, and since then, has been held first in the detention centre of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC and then in Naqadeh Prison without a court order.
Mohammad Moradi, a resident of Qabar Hoseyn village of Piranshahr, West Azerbaijan province, returned to Iran from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq on 22 April 2018 after his family coordinated with the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC and received safe conduct. But he was detained when he entered Iran through the Kileh border crossing in Sardasht. He was transferred to the detention centre of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC in Orumiyeh.
Moradi was subjected to the most severe tortures for 45 days in the detention centre of this security institution for forced confessions on “membership in the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI) and returning to Iran for armed operations” and was later transferred to Naqadeh Prison.
The first hearing of his trial was held in September 2019 without the presence of a lawyer. He was charged with “membership in the country’s opposition societies” and “illegal exit from the country”. During the court hearing, he denied the charges against him and stated several times that the confessions were obtained from him under torture and coercion and that he had signed the confessions without reading them.
A source familiar with Moradi’s case had previously told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) that, “Judge Javad Gholami has met with Mohammad Moradi twice in Naqadeh Prison, and has told him that cooperation with the Revolutionary Guards against Kurdish opposition parties and accepting the accusations made by this security-military organisation were the conditions for ending the uncertainty of his situation. But he has not agreed to cooperate.”
