Agents of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence arrested two Kurdish student brothers after stopping their vehicle on a highway in Isfahan on 17 March without presenting judicial arrest warrants, a local human rights activist told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
Mahan Hemmati, 17, is an 11th-grade arts student specializing in photography. Nima Hemmati is a master’s student in ethnomusicology at the University of Rasht, the source said.
The brothers are originally from Abdanan and were residents of Isfahan, according to the source, who added that they are sons of Naser Hemmati, a Kurdish psychiatrist and writer who has previously faced multiple arrests in Isfahan.
The detained brothers have been held at Isfahan Central Prison’s Ward Alif-Teh (A-T), a security unit operated by the intelligence ministry, the source said.
Their father, Naser Hemmati, was sentenced in July 2025 to more than five years in prison on charges of “propaganda against the state,” “insulting the Supreme Leader,” and “attempting to support the occupying regime of Jerusalem.”
Naser Hemmati was sentenced by Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Ilam but has not yet been arrested to serve his sentence, likely because a higher court has not yet upheld the verdict due to a pending appeal.
There has been no official comment from Iranian authorities on the arrest of the brothers.
