Iran’s judiciary has been refraining from prosecuting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for killing Behzad Azizi, a 19-year-old Kurdish civilian in Baneh, Kurdistan province.
On 22 March, IRGC forces killed Azizi at the Karimabad checkpoint at the entrance of Baneh.
Although the young man’s family filed a complaint against the IRGC, the court has taken no action against the IRGC forces and the judicial authorities have failed to pursue the case, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned.
“Behzad Azizi, a 19-year-old man from Baneh, was shot by IRGC forces at the Karimabad checkpoint on his way home and killed on the spot with a single bullet to the head. He was alone in the car at the time of his death and the IRGC forces targeted and killed him from a few metres away for no reason,” a relative of the victim told KHRN.
The IRGC set up the Karimabad checkpoint at the entrance to Baneh following recent anti-government protests in the town over the murder of Zhina Mahsa Amini.
The source added that after Azizi’s body was taken to the Forensic Medicine Department in Baneh, the security agencies forced the family to bury the body overnight in his home village of Darreh Sheykhan.
