Four Kurdish political prisoners arrested during the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising in Bukan – Rezgar Beigzadeh Babamiri, Ali (Soran) Ghassemi, Pezhman Soltani and Kaveh Salehi – remain without clear legal status in Orumiyeh Central Prison more than 40 months after their arrests.
Branch 39 of the Supreme Court quashed their death sentences in November 2025, but their case was referred several months later to the Bukan Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office and has yet to be examined.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that the four prisoners have repeatedly requested transfers to Bukan Prison in recent months, but prison officials and judicial authorities have ignored their requests.
In a separate case opened against the four men on charges of “premeditated murder”, another branch of the Supreme Court commuted Soltani’s qisas (retribution in kind) sentence to nine years in prison.
The court also reduced Beigzadeh Babamiri’s 15-year sentence to nine years and Ghassemi’s sentence of 10 years and one day to five years and one day.
In another case, Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh, presided over by Judge Reza Najafzadeh, had sentenced the four men to a combined total of 10 death sentences.
The charges included “armed insurrection” (baghi), “enmity against God” (moharebeh), “espionage for Israel” and “leading and forming a criminal group engaged in armed insurrection”.
Another defendant in the same case, Tifour Salimi Babamiri, who is currently provisionally free on bail, was also sentenced to death.
In addition to the death sentences, each of the prisoners received terms of between five and 15 years and they were fined a combined total of 430.58 billion rials.
The related charges included “collaboration with the hostile state of Israel by carrying out intelligence missions for Mossad”, “involvement in smuggling 120 Starlink satellite devices”, “propaganda against the state” and “assembly and collusion with intent to act against national security”.
After the Supreme Court quashed the sentences, the case was initially referred to the Mahabad Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office and subsequently to its counterpart in Bukan.
Security agencies have reportedly pressured judicial officials in Bukan to issue new death sentences against the four prisoners despite the Supreme Court’s decision.
The men remain without clear legal status in the Ershad ward, which holds political prisoners, at Orumiyeh Central Prison.
They were arrested along with 10 other Bukan residents, who are currently free on bail, in mid-April and early May 2023 for participating in “Women, Life, Freedom” protests in Bukan and Baneh.
After several months of physical and psychological torture at Ministry of Intelligence detention facilities in Bukan and Orumiyeh to extract forced confessions, the four men were transferred to Orumiyeh Central Prison on 23 August 2023.
During this period, they were denied family visits and access to a lawyer.
On 14 July 2024, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-affiliated Tasnim News Agency published parts of their forced confessions.
The defendants later said the confessions had been extracted under intense pressure and torture and were used as the basis for the severe sentences imposed on them.
