Kurdistan Human Rights Network

Kurdish Sunni cleric Saber Khoda-Moradi has been sentenced to prison, while fellow cleric Ayat Gholami has been arrested, in a renewed wave of crackdowns by the Special Clerical Courts. The Special Clerical Court in Hamadan recently sentenced Saber Khoda-Moradi, the Friday prayer leader of the town of Qawakh in Saqqez, Kurdistan Province, to 22 months in prison. He had already received a 15-month prison sentence in...

Iranian authorities have refused to hand over the body of Kurdish political prisoner Hamid Hosseinnezhad Heidaranlou following his secret execution, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned. On the evening of 21 April, his family were summoned by judicial officials in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan Province, informed of the secret execution and warned against holding a public memorial. Behzad Sarkhanlou, the Deputy Prosecutor of Orumiyeh, told...

Iranian authorities have secretly executed Kurdish political prisoner Hamid Hosseinnezhad Heidaranlou, his family was told on the evening of 21 April after being summoned to the Orumiyeh court in West Azerbaijan Province. Officials did not disclose when the execution took place. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that on the evening of 21 April, the Deputy Prosecutor of Orumiyeh, Behzad Sarkhanlou, informed the...

Kurdish civilians Awat Babakhani, Zaher Mahmoudian, Mohammad Khezri and Saeid Zargoush were arrested by security forces in Oshnavieh, Abdanan, and Divandarreh in the past week and taken to undisclosed locations. Babakhani, from Divandarreh in Kurdistan Province, was arrested by Ministry of Intelligence agents on 15 April, and his condition and whereabouts remain unknown. On 19 April, security forces raided the homes of Khezri and Mahmoudian in...

Loghman Amini, the Friday prayer leader of the Chahar Yar-e Nabi mosque and a religious studies teacher in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province, was arrested today following a summons to the Special Clerical Court in Hamadan and taken to an undisclosed location. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that Amini received an official notice in recent days ordering him to appear before the Special Clerical...