Omid Ebrahimi, a former Kurdish political prisoner from Oshnavieh, West Azerbaijan Province, was previously arrested in 2018 and provisionally released on bail after 45 days in detention.
Later, the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Oshnavieh sentenced him to two years and six months in prison on charges of “acting against national security” through alleged collaboration with the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI).
The sentence was reduced to two years by the Court of Appeal, and in September 2019, he was sent to prison to serve his sentence, and was released in May 2021 upon completion of his prison term.
Arrest
Ebrahimi was arrested by Ministry of Intelligence forces in Oshnavieh on 7 May 2025, and taken to the Ministry’s detention facility in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan Province.
Defendant’s Rights
He was arrested without a warrant and was denied family visits and access to legal representation.
Current Status
Ebrahimi was transferred from the Ministry of Intelligence detention centre in Orumiyeh to Oshnavieh Prison on 28 May 2025 and was provisionally released on bail on 2 June 2025.
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.
