Arrest
Amir Fegheh, a Kurdish civilian from the village of Khoranj in Piranshahr, West Azerbaijan Province, was arrested by the Ministry of Intelligence in the village on 23 May 2023, and taken to the Ministry’s detention facility in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan Province.
After about 20 days of physical and psychological torture aimed at extracting forced confessions, he was transferred to Naqadeh Prison in West Azerbaijan Province.
During his detention, he was denied family visits and access to legal representation.
Judicial Process
In September 2024, Branch 102 of the Second Criminal Court of Piranshahr sentenced him to five years in prison on charges of “membership in opposition groups” (specifically, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan).
In a separate case, the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Mahabad, West Azerbaijan Province, sentenced Fegheh to a total of five years and six months in prison on charges including “acting against national security.”
Following the application of Article 134 of the Islamic Penal Code (which consolidates sentences), as well as a request for submission to the verdict, his sentence was reduced to four years and six months of imprisonment.
Current Status
Fegheh is being held in Naqadeh Prison.
Additional Information
On 8 March 2025, Fegheh was granted a seven-day furlough on bail of 50 billion rials (nearly 50,000 USD).
Notes:
1. Article 499 of the Islamic Penal Code: “Anyone who joins one of the groups, associations, or branches of the associations mentioned in Article 498 shall be sentenced to imprisonment for a period of three months to five years, unless it is proven that they were unaware of the group’s objectives.”
2. The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) was founded on 16 August 1945, with the aim of gaining autonomy for Iranian Kurdistan. According to the party’s charter, this political organisation, grounded in the “nationalist ideas and organizational structure of the Society for Kurdish Resurrection (KJK) and with a realistic and contemporary approach”, emerged as a modern entity in the political arena. KJK was the founder of the Republic of Kurdistan (22 January 1946 – 15 December 1946) in Mahabad. The republic lasted only 11 months, ending with an attack by the Iranian army, which executed its leaders, including Qazi Muhammad, the party leader and President of Kurdistan.
PDKI went through a period of armed struggle in the late 1960s, marked by internal party disputes, and ultimately, re-emerged as a political party on the eve of the 1979 revolution. Two of its leaders, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and Sadegh Sharafkandi, were assassinated by the Islamic Republic of Iran in Europe in 1989 and 1992, respectively. In 2006, due to heightened internal conflicts, the party split into two factions: the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (HDK). These two factions eventually announced their reunification on 22 August 2022, after 15 years of separation.
The party has declared its ultimate goal as “the establishment of a democratic-socialist society” and its strategic slogan as “securing the rights of the Kurdish people in Iranian Kurdistan within the framework of a federal democratic system in Iran”. The main headquarters of the PDKI is in Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
3. Article 498 of the Islamic Penal Code: “Anyone who, under any pretext or ideology, forms or runs a group, association, or an entity of more than two people, either inside or outside the country, under any name or title, with the aim of disrupting national security, and is not considered a ‘mohareb’ (enemy of God), shall be sentenced to imprisonment for a period of two to ten years.”
4. Article 134 of the Islamic Penal Code: “In the case of multiple crimes, only the most severe punishment mentioned in the verdict is enforceable, and the other punishments are not considered unless the most severe punishment is reduced or converted for a legal reason, such as the private plaintiff’s withdrawal of his complaint, the annulment of the legal punishment, or the passage of time, in which case the next most severe punishment will be implemented.”
5. In cases where an individual accepts the verdict issued by the lower court and waives their right to appeal, they will be subject to the law of “submission to the verdict” and will receive a reduction in their sentence.