The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) abducted environmental activists Mohsen Dadgar, Saeid Dadgar, and Yasser Saberi on 20 June while they were returning from the Kusalan mountain area where they had gone to control the wildfires.
The fires were caused by the Revolutionary Guards shelling the area.
After stopping their vehicle, the IRGC forces announced that travel to the Kusalan mountain area was prohibited and detained the three environmental activists without a judicial order.
After their arrest, the three environmental activists were reportedly transferred to the detention centre of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province.
Reports from some of the residents of the villages in the Hawraman region indicate that the presence of IRGC forces in the protected environmental area of Kusalan and the destruction of the area through road construction and the establishment of a new military base on the heights of this mountain continue.
Since 12 June, the IRGC has been heavily shelling the Kusalan mountain area in the Sarvabad district of Kurdistan province under the pretext of conducting the “Moharram military exercise”.
Following the shelling of Mount Kusalan, IRGC forces also bombed some forested heights in the villages near Marivan, Kurdistan province, causing extensive wildfires in the forests around the villages of Bilu, Darreh Tefi, Chor and Bardeh Rasheh.
Despite the efforts of environmental activists, some of these fires have yet to be contained.
