Kurdish civilian from Piranshahr

Detention date: 14 July 1991

Charged with: Membership in the KDPI

Sentence: 35 years in prison

Current status: Released on 21 November 2019

Osman Mostafapour, a Kurdish civilian from Piranshahr born in 1967, was arrested on 14 July 1991 after a clash between a number of Peshmerga forces of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI) and forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the Asengaran valley in Targavar region of Orumiyeh.

Mostafapour was arrested along with two other members of the KDPI named Molla Jassem Delneshin and Ayoub Jahangiri.

The three detainees were interrogated and severely tortured physically and mentally for six months in the detention centres of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC and the Ministry of Intelligence in Orumiyeh.

On 7 January 1992, after the interrogations, they were sent to solitary confinement in Orumiyeh Central Prison.

On 25 December, Branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh, presided over by Judge Jowhari, sentenced them to the death penalty on charges of “membership in the KDPI”, denying them their right to a lawyer.

After the Court of Appeals upheld the death sentences of the three Kurdish political prisoners, Delneshin was executed in the summer of 1992.

Jahangiri was also executed the following year in Orumiyeh Central Prison.

In 1993, after the execution of these two political prisoners, Mostafapour was exiled to Tabriz Central Prison, where he spent two years of his imprisonment.

Mostafapour was returned to Orumiyeh Central Prison in 1995 and his death sentence was overturned in 2000 and dropped to 10 years of imprisonment. However, in the same year, Branch 3 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh sentenced him to 25 years imprisonment on charges of “membership of the KDPI”, increasing his total sentence to 35 years in prison.

During his imprisonment, Mostafapour lost his mother, a sister and a brother. Each time he was denied the right to attend the funeral due to the objections of the prosecutor’s office and the office of the intelligence ministry in Orumiyeh.

He was also deprived of his right to temporary leave and parole due to the objections of the office of the intelligence ministry in Orumiyeh.

Mostafapour was released from Orumiyeh Central Prison on 21 November 2019 after serving 28 years.