Karim Maroufpour was a Kurdish political prisoner from Naqadeh, West Azerbaijan Province.
Arrest
Maroufpour was arrested in the summer of 2024 by forces of the Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and transferred to a security detention centre in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan Province.
He was arrested along with Ramin Zaleh and Khedr Mohammadpour.
According to a former cellmate, the three men were subjected to physical and psychological torture for several months in order to extract forced confessions that they had “planned to kill a member of the Revolutionary Guards in Piranshahr”.
After the initial interrogation, they were transferred to Naqadeh Prison.
Judicial Process
Maroufpour spent months in legal uncertainty after being transferred to Naqadeh Prison and was denied the right to a lawyer of his choosing.
In December 2025, Maroufpour and his co-defendants, Ramin Zaleh and Khedr Mohammadpour, were tried by Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Mahabad, West Azerbaijan Province, presided over by Judge Sami, on charges of “armed insurrection” (baghi) through alleged membership in the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI).
Following the trial, the court sentenced Maroufpour to death.
Current Status
Maroufpour was secretly executed in Naqadeh Prison in the early hours of 21 May 2026.
Additional Information
Maroufpour’s family and lawyers were given no prior notice of the execution, and he was denied a final visit with his family before the sentence was carried out.
Notes:
1. Article 287 of the Islamic Penal Code: “A group engaging in armed rebellion against the Islamic Republic of Iran is considered rebellious, and if they use weapons, their members are subject to the death penalty.”
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.
