Ayoub Asadi was arrested by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces on 15 June 2011 near the village of Buriyar in Sarvabad, Kurdistan Province.

IRGC forces opened fire to arrest him and Mohammad Hossein Rezaei, a member of Komala, and both were arrested after being wounded.

Asadi’s trial on charges of “enmity against God” (moharebeh) for being a member of the Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan was held in three hearings at Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj, Kurdistan Province, presided over by Judge Hassan Babaei.

On 17 September 2012, he was informed in prison that he had been sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment with exile to Kashmar Prison.

On 17 April 2013, he was exiled from Sanandaj Central Prison to Kashmar Prison.

– On 6 June 2016, he went on a hunger strike to protest the refusal of his furlough request by the Kashmar Prosecutor’s Office, the prison officials’ neglect of his health condition and his request to be transferred to the prison in the city where his family lives. After announcing the hunger strike, he was moved to solitary confinement by the prison officials. On 2 July 2016, after 27 days, he ended his hunger strike after the prison authorities promised to consider his demands.

– In 2018, Asadi was granted furlough for the first time after seven years in prison.

1. Article 279 of the Islamic Penal Code: “Moharebeh (enmity against God) is defined as drawing a weapon with the intention of killing, stealing from, or intimidating people in a way that causes insecurity in the environment.” According to Article 282 of the Islamic Penal Code, “if a person commits the crime of moharebeh, they will be sentenced to crucifixion, execution, amputation of the right hand and left foot, or exile, at the discretion of the judge.”

2. Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan: The Komala of Revolutionary Toilers of Iranian Kurdistan, known as Komala, a Marxist-Leninist organisation with Maoist inclinations, after nearly a decade of clandestine activities, publicly declared its establishment on 15 February 1979, simultaneously with the victory of the 1979 revolution.

In 1984, Komala and several other leftist Iranian groups founded the Communist Party of Iran (CPI), and Komala was renamed to Komala Kurdistan’s Organisation of the Communist Party of Iran.

In 2000, part of the party’s leadership and members, under a project entitled “Reviving Komala,” split from the CPI and reverted to their original name before the formation of the CPI; the Komala of Revolutionary Toilers of Iranian Kurdistan or Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan.

In 2007, due to internal disagreements, a group split from this party and established the Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan. They describe their party as a “Kurdistani leftist party” aiming to achieve “the right to self-determination for the Kurdish nation” in Iranian Kurdistan. The central headquarters of this party is in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region of Iraq.