Kurdish woman political prisoner Shahnaz Sadeghifar, who was sentenced to five years and one day in prison, has been released on a bail of 500 million Iranian Tomans – nearly 20,000 USD.

A source familiar with Sadeghifar’s case spoke to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) and said, “Shahnaz Sadeghifar has been temporarily released from Orumiyeh Central Prison on Thursday, 18 March, with the consent of the Court of Appeals of Orumiyeh until her sentence of five years and one day is finalised.”


Shahnaz Sadeghifar’s trial had been held on 21 July 2020 in Branch 2 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh, presided over by Judge Ali Sheikhlou.

The court had sentenced her to 15 years in prison on charges of “acting against national security” through “membership in the Kurdistan Freedom Party”.

In early February, the Court of Appeals of Orumiyeh reduced the sentence to five years and one day of imprisonment after her lawyer appealed against the ruling of the Islamic Revolutionary Court.

A source familiar with the case of this political prisoner had previously told the KHRN that Sadeghifar and her daughter Ainaz Zare had gone to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq before a few years and had joined the lines of the Kurdistan Freedom Party for several years. However, in August 2019, “They returned to Iran due to the insistence of their families and in coordination with the Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps”.
According to this source, the border guards of Siranband in Baneh had detained Sadeghifar and her daughter upon their entry to Iran. But they released the two after receiving information from the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC in Orumiyeh.

Sadeghifar and her daughter later handed themselves over to this military-security institution. After that, “the interrogators told them that they could be there the next day and could spend the first night with their families.

The next day, they headed to the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC, where they were arrested and interrogated for two months.”

The source reported that Sadeghifar and her daughter were tortured and that security interrogators had asked her to collaborate with the IRGC and pressed them to obtain forced confessions. “Ms. Sadeghifar and her 17-year-old daughter Ainaz Zare were held in the same cell for about two months and were under constant interrogation. They were then transferred to Orumiyeh Central Prison.”

Meanwhile, Sadeghifar’s daughter Ainaz Zare was released from prison on 16 November 2020, after spending 15 months in prison.