The Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office in Kamyaran, Kurdistan Province, has charged civilian Pouria Javaheri with offences including “enmity against God” (moharebeh), which carries the death penalty in Iran, and referred his case to Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj, Kurdistan Province.
Javaheri, who is currently being held in temporary detention in Kamyaran Prison, is at risk of being sentenced to death for allegedly “killing” a member of the IRGC.
Javaheri was arrested on 29 November 2022 after being summoned to the office of the Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Kamyaran.
Javaheri’s lawyer Mostafa Ahmadian wrote on his personal Instagram page that: “The file of my client, Mr Pouria Javaheri, a young man from Kamyaran, who has been in detention since last November’s nationwide protests, was recently transferred to Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj after an extensive legal process and his indictment by the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office in Kamyaran. We await the upcoming trial date. The charges brought against my client include ‘enmity against God’ (moharebeh) through the alleged deliberate killing of a military officer, ‘membership of anti-state groups’, ‘propaganda activities against the state’, and ‘deliberate assault on several military officers’.”
Dozens of civilians signed a letter addressed to the city’s court stating that the civilian was present at an asphalt company in the village of Tilkuh in Kamyaran at the time of the IRGC member’s murder.
In March, Javaheri was taken to the 12-metre Street of Kamyaran and forced by security interrogators to take part in the filming of a fake protest video in the area in which he allegedly “opened fire at military-security forces”.
According to a witness that spoke to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), the civilian initially refused to participate in the video but was forced to do so after the security officers threatened him with a gun.
At the same time, a team of security interrogators recorded a fake video as if filming the “killing of an IRGC member” during the anti-government protest.
In a brief phone call in December 2022 from the Shahramfar Detention Center in Sanandaj, Javaheri told his family that one of his ribs had been broken under torture during interrogation.
During a family visit, Javaheri also told his family that he was forced to make “confessions” during interrogation at the IRGC’s Shahramfar detention centre as a result of severe physical and psychological torture.
Last year, Javaheri’s parents published a message addressed to human rights organisations and said that their son was “innocent”.
On 11 January, Seyyed Hossein Hosseini, the Chief Justice of Kurdistan Province, told the state media outlets that a case was filed against Javaheri in Branch One of the Kamyaran Prosecutor’s Office.
Hosseini said: “He confessed to firing at the officers and stated that he had received the gun from another person who was also arrested with a judicial order.”
In the end, he said that the arrest warrant for Javaheri was issued on the charge of “enmity against God”.
