Ahmad Tamouei, a former Kurdish political prisoner who spent 14 years in jail before his release in 2021, was arrested again in Tehran on March 4, 2026. He was arrested by the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and is currently jailed at the Greater Tehran Prison under a temporary detention order.
A source told Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) that Tamouei was a Kurdish political activist originally from Salmas. He had been living in Tehran after his 2021 prison release and was working as a Taxi driver for the ride-hailing service Snapp.
In the early hours of March 4, 2026, he was arrested on Kargar Jonoubi Street in Tehran at an IRGC checkpoint. His arrest was made without a judicial arrest warrant and involved the use of violence.
The source said Tamouei was then subjected to severe physical and psychological torture for one day following his latest arrest . On March 5, 2026, he was taken to Ward 2-A of Evin Prison in Tehran.
After the current Iran war intensified, Tamouei and several other detainees were moved from Evin Prison to an undisclosed security detention facility in eastern Tehran. He was later taken to Greater Tehran Prison on March 13, 2026.
A legal case has been opened against him at Branch 3 of the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office of District 33 in Tehran. He is currently being held on charges of “assembly and collusion”, but has been denied access to legal counsel and family visits.
Tamouei was previously arrested on November 24, 2007, by IRGC intelligence forces in Mahabad and was taken to a detention facility operated by IRGC’s Intelligence Organization in Orumiyeh. In a 2016 open letter addressed to Ahmed Shaheed, then UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, Tamouei said that he was subjected to two months of torture in solitary confinement on charges of “membership in PJAK”.
PJAK is the abbreviation of the Free Life Party of Kurdistan, an Iranian Kurdish armed opposition group banned in Iran.
According to Tamouei, the torture he had faced in prison included electric shocks, suspension, flogging and mock execution.
In February 2008, Branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Mahabad sentenced him to 15 years in prison to be served at Orumiyeh Central Prison on charges of “enmity against God” (moharebeh). The sentence was upheld in 2008 and subsequently enforced.
During his 14 years and 2 months in prison, Tamouei was repeatedly threatened and interrogated by an office of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry based inside the Orumiyeh Central Prison, particularly due to his participation in a number of hunger strikes organized by political prisoners and other prisoners of conscience.
