Joint explanation of the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN, or Network) and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran (ABC, or Center): This case is a part of the collaborative documentation of the Kurdistan Human Rights Network and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network intends to gradually document cases of extrajudicial executions of Kurdish citizens and activists. For this purpose, the network has used the experiences and research methodology of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, which has been active in the field of documenting human rights violations in Iran for many years. The report of this case and subsequent reports will be published in the “documentation” section of the Kurdistan Human Rights Network website and the “Omid Memorial” of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center. Some of the original and follow-up interviews used in this documentation were conducted by the Center, some by the Network, and some in collaboration.

Information regarding the extrajudicial execution of Mr. Ra’uf Sheikhi (organizational name Darsim Tolheldan), son of Zeinab and Sa’eed, obtained from an interview with one of his relatives (July 19, 2022) and an interview with an informed source (June 14, 2022). To complete the information about the case, news was obtained from the websites NNS Rouge (March 4, 2014), Kurdistan Human Rights Network (February 16, 2020, and April 1, 2020), International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (March 3, 2014), Forat News Agency (February 17, 2020) and the statement of the Kurdistan Free Life Party-PJAK (March 1, 2014).

Mr. Ra’uf Sheikhi was born on May 18, 1991, into a Sunni Kurdish family in the village of Kanisur, Saqqez county, Kurdistan province. He received his primary education up to second guidance level in the same village. Mr. Sheikhi belonged to an agricultural family of ten members. He himself also worked as a farmer for some time. Mr. Sheikhi’s family was interested in Kurdistan’s political issues but weren’t members of any group, organization or party. According to an informed source, Mr. Sheikhi’s relatives described him as “a brave, active, tireless, kind and pure-hearted person.” According to them, since his teenage years, he was interested in books, anthems and music.” (Interview, July 19, 2022)

During his youth, Mr. Sheikhi became interested in Kurdistan’s political issues via the means of political songs and Kurdish satellite TV networks. In 2009, he joined the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) and commenced his activism in that party’s youth branch. (Interview, July 19, 2022) (Forat News Agency, February 17, 2020) (Kurdistan Free Life Party-PJAK, March 1, 2014) According to an informed source, Mr. Sheikhi’s political-organizational activities were especially concentrated in the city of Sanandaj. As a member of PJAK, he used to secretly frequent Iranian universities, including Sanandaj University, in order to attract supporters. (Interview, July 19, 2022)

The Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK)

The Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) was founded in 2004 in the Qandil Mountains on the border between the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Iran. The party follows the ideas of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and proclaims its paradigm as a democratic and ecological society based on women’s liberation. PJAK aims to establish a democratic confederal system and a political framework for democratic self-organisation to organise the people and build a democratic nation.

In 2014, PJAK participated in the formation of the East Kurdistan Democratic and Free Society (KODAR), alongside the Eastern Kurdistan Units (YRK), the East Kurdistan Free Women Society (KJAR), and the Eastern Kurdistan Youth Organizations (KCR). PJAK is also a member of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), where other parties such as the PKK, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), etc., are also members.

In the first two decades of its existence, PJAK’s activities led to more than 10 members being executed on charges related to the party. Hundreds of PJAK and YRK members have also been killed in clashes with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In the summer of 2011, the IRGC attacked the Qandil Mountains to take control of PJAK’s main bases. The conflict lasted several weeks and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of IRGC members. In the autumn of that year, PJAK declared a ceasefire with the Islamic Republic, mediated by the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and in recent years military confrontations between the party and the Revolutionary Guards have decreased significantly.

Background of Extrajudicial Killings by the Islamic Republic of Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a long history of politically motivated violence in Iran and around the world. Since the 1979 Revolution, Islamic Republic operatives inside and outside the country have engaged in kidnapping, disappearing, and killing a large number of individuals whose activities they deemed undesirable. The actual number of the victims of extrajudicial killings inside Iran is not clear; however, these murders began in February 1979 and have continued since then, both inside and outside Iran. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center has so far identified over 540 killings outside Iran attributed to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Dissidents have been assassinated by the agents of the Islamic Republic outside Iran in countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, India, and Pakistan in Asia; Dubai, Iraq, and Turkey in the Middle East; Cyprus, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Great Britain in Europe; and the United States across the Atlantic Ocean. In most cases, there has not been much published, and local authorities have not issued arrest warrants. But documentation, evidence, and traces obtained through investigations conducted by local police and judicial authorities confirm the theory of state committed crimes. In some instances, these investigations have resulted in the expulsion or arrest of Iranian diplomats. In a few cases outside Iran, the perpetrators of these murders have been arrested and put on trial. The evidence presented revealed the defendants’ connection to Iran’s government institutions, and an arrest warrant has been issued for Iran’s Minister of Information.

The manner in which these killings were organized and implemented in Iran and abroad is indicative of a single pattern which, according to Roland Chatelin, the Swiss prosecutor, contains common parameters and detailed planning. It can be ascertained from the similarities between these murders in different countries that the Iranian government is the principal entity that ordered the implementation of these crimes. Iranian authorities have not officially accepted responsibility for these murders and have even attributed their commission to internal strife in opposition groups. Nevertheless, since the very inception of the Islamic Republic regime, the Islamic Republic officials have justified these crimes from an ideological and legal standpoint. In the spring of 1979, Sadeq Khalkhali, the first Chief Shari’a Judge of the Islamic Revolutionary Courts, officially announced the regime’s decision to implement extrajudicial executions and justified the decision: “ … These people have been sentenced to death; from the Iranian people’s perspective, if someone wants to assassinate these individuals abroad, in any country, no government has any right to bring the perpetrator to trial as a terrorist, because such a person is the implementing agent of the sentence issued by the Islamic Revolutionary Court. Therefore, they are Mahduroddam and their sentence is death regardless of where they are.” More than 10 years after these proclamations, in a speech about the security forces’ success, Ali Fallahian, the regime’s Minister of Information, stated the following regarding the elimination of members of the opposition: “ … We have had success in inflicting damage to many of these little groups outside the country and on our borders.”

At the same time, various political, judicial, and security officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran have, at different times and occasions, confirmed the existence of a long term government policy for these extrajudicial killings and in some cases their implementation.

Read more about the background of extrajudicial killings in the Islamic Republic of Iran by clicking on the left hand highlight with the same title.

Mr. Ra’uf Sheikhi’s Extrajudicial Execution

Mr. Ra’uf Sheikhi had gone to Sanandaj on the Kurdistan Free Life Party’s (PJAK) behalf to do political and organizational work when he was shot and killed by Sanandaj security forces in a taxi on February 12, 2014. (NNS Rouge website, March 4, 2014) (International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, March 3, 2014)

On the morning of the day of the shooting, Mr. Sheikhi got into a taxi as a passenger in the Faizabad neighborhood of Sanandaj. At 10 A.M, security forces on Arshad Street, Faizabad neighborhood, Sanandaj, blocked the road with several cars. These forces began to directly fire on the car without any attempt to arrest Mr. Sheikhi or to save the lives of the other taxi passengers (driver and a passenger). (Interview, June 14, 2022) Ra’uf Sheikhi and the taxi’s other passenger, named Milad Piri, were killed immediately due to severe injuries and the driver was also wounded. (Interview, June 14, 2022; NNS Rouge) According to an informed source, nobody in the taxi was armed. (Interview, June 14, 2022) According to a research report by Rabin Rahmani published after the shooting on March 3, 2014, “Information Ministry agents dispersed the people, and then, with the presence of IRGC forces and plainclothes officers, they blocked the aforementioned street, took the wounded taxi driver out of the car, carried him away with them, and transferred the bodies inside the car to the 22nd Beit ol-Moqaddas base in Sanandaj.” (International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, March 3, 2014) According to an informed source, the security forces quickly cleaned the place of traces of this shooting. (Interview, June 14, 2022)

According to one of the relatives, not only did the security institutions refuse to hand over Mr. Ra’uf Sheikhi’s body to his family, they also failed to inform the family of his burial place. Mr. Sheikhi’s family, despite the opposition of the security institutions, held his funeral ceremony at the family home, and a large number of local people and political activists also participated in it. (Interview, July 19, 2022; Interview, June 14, 2022)

Officials’ Reaction

There was no reaction to this attack from officials and government media. However, the security institutions have put pressure on Mr. Sheikhi’s family regarding the anniversary ceremony. On the sixth anniversary of Mr. Sheikhi’s murder on February 14, 2020, security forces arrived at Ra’uf Sheikhi’s family home, insulted the family members, tore up the announcements of the anniversary ceremony, and arrested the brother and two sons-in-law of this family. (Kurdistan Human Rights Network, February 16, 2020) These three were released by the Sanandaj Information Office after 40 days detention, after completion of the interrogation period and posting bail. (Kurdistan Human Rights Network, April 1, 2020)

Family’s Reaction

Mr. Sheikhi’s family holds a memorial ceremony every year on their son’s anniversary. In spite of the arrest of family members on the sixth anniversary of Mr. Sheikhi’s murder, the anniversary ceremonies didn’t cease, but they were no longer held in public and not in the same manner as formerly. (Interview, July 19, 2022)

Mr. Sheikhi’s family never followed-up on his murder case through legal means. (Interview, July 19, 2022)

The Party’s Reaction

The Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) issued a statement at the time announcing the death of a party member, stating that he was a member of the party’s youth branch and that he had gone to Iranian Kurdistan to do political and organizational work. The PJAK wrote in this statement: “This is the brutal act of the Islamic Republic at a time when the PJAK has not carried out any armed actions and has had the expansion of political and organizational activities as its work plan.” (Kurdistan Free Life Party-PJAK, March 1, 2014).