The Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) arrested five Kurdish civil rights activists in Kamyaran, Kurdistan Province, following the funeral of Esmaeil Karimi, an environmental activist who died while fighting a wildfire in the village of Najafabad in Kamyaran.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that IRGC intelligence agents arrested activists Farideh Veysi, Hamid Sabzeh, Amanj Ghorbani, Farzin Movahhedi and Amir Nadimi as they were returning from Karimi’s funeral on 24 July and took them to an undisclosed location.
Security forces also reportedly confiscated the mobile phones of several other civil rights activists and ordered them to appear at the IRGC’s intelligence office in Kamyaran on 25 July.
Ghorbani, Movahhedi and Nadimi have been detained by the security services several times in recent years for their involvement in civil and environmental activities.
Esmaeil Karimi, an environmental activist and employee of the Natural Resources Department in Kamyaran, died on 24 July from injuries sustained while fighting a forest fire.
His funeral in the village of Najafabad on 24 July was attended by a large crowd of civilians and civil rights activists who chanted “Martyrs never die”.
