Arrest
Ahmadi, a father of three, was arrested by the Ministry of Intelligence forces in Baneh on 27 April 2020 and taken to the ministry’s detention facility in Sanandaj, Kurdistan Province.
At the time of his arrest, Ahmadi was shot in the leg by security forces. He was denied medical care during his detention and was subjected to severe physical and psychological torture to extract forced confessions.
At the end of his interrogation, he was transferred to Sanandaj Central Prison.
Judicial Process
Ahmadi’s trial took place on 27 August 2022 at Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj on charges of “armed insurrection” (baghi) for being a member of a Kurdish opposition party and “involvement in murder”.
On 3 September 2023, he was informed in prison that he had been sentenced to death, which was subsequently upheld by Branch 39 of the Supreme Court in February 2024.
At the same time, three other defendants in the case, Mohammad Karimi, Baset Karimi and Mohammad Feyzi, were sentenced to long prison terms.
Current Status
Ahmadi is currently imprisoned in Sanandaj Central Prison and is at risk of being executed at any time.
Additional Information
– Ahmadi and death row prisoners Hemin Mostafaei and Shoresh Morovvati were severely beaten by prison guards during a crackdown on prisoners at Sanandaj Central Prison on 1 October 2022. They were then transferred from the prison to the Ministry of Intelligence’s detention centre in the city, where they were subjected to several months of interrogation and torture.
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.
