Kurdistan Human Rights Network

The fate of Bardin (Hamzeh) Jafari, a Kurdish artist from Gilan-e Gharb, Kermanshah Province, who was arrested four days ago without official charges, remains unknown. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that Jafari was arrested during a raid on his home in Gilan-e Gharb on 3 May by armed officers of the Intelligence Organisation the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The artist was arrested...

Security forces have arrested five Sunni Kurdish religious activists and civilians in Piranshahr, West Azerbaijan Province, in recent days, and taken them to undisclosed locations. The individuals, Somayyeh Ghaderi, Hossein Bayazidi, Mohammad Soltani, Mohammad Moradi and Hadi Yousefpour, were arrested in separate incidents. Ghaderi, from the village of Gazgasak, Soltani from the village of Khorenj, and Moradi from the village of Bikus, were all arrested on...

A kolbar, Ata Rostampour, was shot dead by Iranian border forces in the Hangeh-ye Zhal border area of Baneh, Kurdistan Province, on 5 May. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that the incident occurred on the evening of 5 May when a group of kolbars came under fire from border forces, resulting in the death of Rostampour, a kolbar from Saqqez, Kurdistan Province. Rostampour's...

Khosrow Besharat, a Kurdish prisoner of conscience sentenced to death, had his last meeting with his family on 5 May in Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj, Alborz province, heightening fears of his imminent execution. Besharat was transferred to solitary confinement on 1 May at the same times as the execution of his cousin and co-defendant Anvar Khezri. Five of Besharat’s co-defendants, Ghassem Abasteh, Ayoub Karimi, Davoud...

Khosrow Babavaladeyni, a 65-year-old prisoner sentenced to death for "premeditated murder", was executed on 1 May in Dizel Abad Prison in Kermanshah, Kermanshah Province. Babavaladeyni, a father of four from the village of Sarmaj Hosseinkhani in Harsin, Kermanshah Province, was arrested about 10 years ago and sentenced to death under the Islamic law of qisas, or retribution-in-kind, which gives the victim’s family the right to...