A female political prisoner, who had been imprisoned for membership in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has been recently released after serving three and a half years in Iran, sources told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
Iranian Kurdish Baran Behzad from Orumiyeh, who had left the PKK in October 2017 to turn herself in, had been arrested by the forces of the Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and imprisoned in Orumiyeh Central Prison, after being interrogated for two months by the IRGC.
Behzad was recently released from prison, four months before the end of her sentence, with the consent of the Prison Classification Council.
During the period of her imprisonment, Behzad was denied of parole and her right to temporary leave.
Although her family had coordinated with security agencies in Iran before her return from the lines of the PKK, she was detained by IRGC forces upon her arrival in the country.
Behzad had been sentenced to five years in prison on charges of “membership in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)” by Branch 2 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh, headed by Judge Ali Sheikhlou. The sentence was later dropped to three years and nine months in prison.
In recent years, dozens of former members of Kurdish opposition parties have been arrested and sentenced to prison after returning to Iran, despite the coordination of their families with security institutions to receive “safe conduct” for their entry.
