Siamand Shaboyi, a member of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), was assassinated near Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, on 12 July.
This comes just a week after two other members of the same party, Loghman Aji and Adel Mohajer, were assassinated in a recreational area in Qaladza, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that Shaboyi’s lifeless body was found on 12 July, around the town of Baharka, near Erbil.
The body of the PDKI member, who was targeted from behind with several bullets, has been transferred to the Department of Forensic Medicine in Erbil.
The PDKI has issued a statement condemning the assassination and calling on the Iraq’s federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government to prevent Iran from using Iraq as a base for its “terrorist activities”.
The assassination comes after Shaboyi had been threatened on websites affiliated with the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and after several members of his family, including his 14-year-old son Komar Shaboyi, had been detained by security forces in Oshnavieh, West Azerbaijan province, in recent months.
On 11 July, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran threatened Kurdish opposition parties in the Kurdistan Region with military action at a meeting in Mashhad, north-east Iran.
He said: “The ground forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have carried out effective missile and drone operations against these groups to protect and maintain the country’s security. After the Iraqi government committed to disarm these groups and prevent their activities by September, these operations were stopped.”
He then added: “We will wait until September, which is the deadline for the Iraqi government’s commitment, and hope that the Iraqi government will fulfill its responsibility. But if this time passes and they remain armed or carry out operations, our operations against these groups will undoubtedly be repeated with greater intensity.”
Siamand Shabouyi, 36, from Oshnavieh, was a welder in Erbil, but his family live in Oshnavieh.
