An Iranian prosecutor’s office has extended the temporary detentions of two Kurdish activists for the third time while another activist has been transferred from the IRGC detention centre to Mahabad Prison.
The Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office of Mahabad extended the temporary detentions of Farzad Samani and Sakar Eini, two Kurdish activists from Mahabad, who had been arrested in Tehran on 9 January – the first day of the wave of arrests of Kurdish activists.
In an interview with the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), a source in Mahabad said: “Today, on 14 March, Branch 3 of the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office of Mahabad extended for the third month the detentions of Farzad Samani and Sakar Eini, who are still being held in the detention centre of the Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Orumiyeh.”
According to this source, the two activists have been under pressure for the past two months to make forced confessions and cooperate with security interrogators, and the extension of their detention is in line with the continuing pressure on them.
The source also told the KHRN that Kurdish student and detainee Soheib Badrouj has been transferred from the detention centre of the Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Orumiyeh to Mahabad Prison, adding that a financial guarantee equivalent to three billion Iranian Tomans – nearly 120,000 USD – were asked for in order to release him on bail.
More than 100 kurdoih activists were arrested in various cities with the start of the widespread arrests of Kurdish civilians and activists on 9 January 2021. According to the information available to the KHRN, at least 53 of these people have, so far, been released on bail, and at least 34 detainees are still being held in the detention centres of the Intelligence Office and the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC in Orumiyeh, Sanandaj, and Marivan.
