Detained Kurdish activist Kajal Rahmani ended her hunger strike on 23 June after 18 days, following a family visit at Sanandaj Women’s Prison, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned.
She has suffered weight loss, reduced mobility, low blood pressure, hand tremors and a sharply reduced heart rate during the strike.
Rahmani, a member of one of Kurdistan’s dadkhah families (a Persian term for victims’ family members and survivors seeking truth and justice), began the hunger strike after her arrest on 6 June in protest at the unlawful detention of herself and other members of her family, the disrespectful treatment by security forces during the arrests and pressure by interrogators to fabricate cases against them.
She met her family in person on 23 June at Sanandaj Women’s Prison (Juvenile Detention Centre) and ended the hunger strike at their request.
Prison medical staff had requested that Rahmani be transferred to hospital because of her critical physical condition, but Ministry of Intelligence interrogators reportedly opposed the request.
In recent days, prison officers have assisted Rahmani in travelling to the administrative section of the women’s prison for interrogation because of her reduced mobility.
On 20 June, her family approached Branch Three of the Kamyaran Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office, seeking clarification of the legal status of Rahmani, her husband Isa Feyzi and her brother Danyal Rahmani, as well as permission to meet her.
The investigating judge told the family that Rahmani’s hunger strike would have no effect on her interrogation by Ministry of Intelligence interrogators, adding that, if she died as a result of the strike, the authorities would only issue her death certificate.
No information has been made available about the fate of Feyzi and Danyal Rahmani since their arrest. Both have been denied access to legal counsel and family visits.
Officials at the Kamyaran Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office have accused the two men of “membership of opposition groups abroad” and stated that 20-day temporary detention orders have been issued against them.
Background
Ministry of Intelligence forces arrested Kajal Rahmani and Danyal Rahmani without warrants and with the use of violence in the early hours of 6 June, after surrounding their family homes and breaking down the entrance doors.
Informed sources said security forces first mistakenly entered another residential unit in the same building. One resident, who had been asleep, went into shock and lost consciousness after being confronted by armed and masked agents.
Security forces also confiscated the mobile phone of Isa Feyzi, who was at home when his wife was arrested.
Hours later, Feyzi went to the headquarters of the Ministry of Intelligence in Kamyaran to seek information about the condition and place of detention of his wife and brother-in-law, but was himself arrested without a warrant by security officers who claimed they intended to ask him “a few questions”.
As pressure on the dadkhah family continued, Ministry of Intelligence forces raided the family homes of four male cousins and confiscated the mobile phones of family members on 13 June. The four men were ordered to report to the Ministry of Intelligence headquarters in Kamyaran.
After attending, they were detained from 10:00 to 17:00 local time that day and questioned about the activities of Kajal Rahmani, Danyal Rahmani and Feyzi before being released.
Feyzi, a civil rights activist and former political prisoner, was previously arrested on 5 January 2019 during a wave of arrests of civil rights activists in Kamyaran.
After more than five months in detention, he was temporarily released on bail from Kamyaran Prison, and was later sentenced by the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Sanandaj to six years’ suspended imprisonment on charges of “acting against national security”.
Kajal and Danyal Rahmani are members of a dadkhah family in Kurdistan. Their brother, Jamal Rahmani, a member of the leadership council of the Democratic and Free Society of East Kurdistan (KODAR), was killed by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces in 2018.
The family has repeatedly approached security bodies in Kamyaran and Sanandaj in recent years to request the return of his body or information about his burial place, but has received no response.
Another brother, Rebin Rahmani, is a former political prisoner and one of the directors of the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
