Kurdistan Human Rights Network

Turkish police have detained on 7 April a former Kurdish woman political prisoner, who holds Iranian citizenship, in Kayseri, central Turkey, and have transferred her to the city's centre for the deportation of asylum seekers. Fatemeh Davand left Iran in January 2022 and has been living in Turkey as a political asylum-seeker ever since. "I was detained by the police for no reason in a shopping...

A former Kurdish political prisoner named Kamran Darvishi has gone on a hunger strike and sewn up his lips in Austria on 23 March Darvishi, who left Iran 11 months ago to seek asylum in Austria, protests against the uncertainty about his asylum case and the local authorities' decision to evacuate him from the building where he lives. He had previously gone on a hunger strike...

A Kurdish asylum-seeking couple from Marivan, Iran's northwestern Kurdistan province, lost their lives after drowning in a river in Greece on 13 January. Somayyeh Jamkhaneh, 28, and her husband Jalil Ravangard, 34, were hoping to reach Europe and seek asylum. Jamkhaneh's brother, Abdollah Jamkhaneh, 15, was also travelling with the couple. He survived after the incident but was arrested by the Greek police in a poor...

The body of an Iranian Kurdish political activist named Ahmad Bigham has been found dead at his house in Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, on 1 January. Bigham's relatives consider his death "suspicious" due to the signs of torture on his body. Erbil police have not yet made an official statement on the matter. The autopsy results will be announced in the next 20 days. In an...

Families of Iranian Kurdish asylum seekers, who were deported to Syria by Turkey, gathered in front of the Turkish embassy in Tehran for the second day in a row on 15 December, demanding the release of their family members. The Turkish police had detained Kurdish asylum seekers Damavand Pakseresht, Mobin Valadbeigi, Afshar Rostami, Bahman Shadravan, Massoud Heidari, Saeed Ahmadi, Fardin Darvishpour, Hedayat Rokhzadi and Samran...

A Kurdish refugee named Bakhtiyar Musazadeh has lost his life due to illness on 22 November after arriving in Germany. Reportedly, the young man fell ill while passing through Belarus in the cold weather. The 25-year-old asylum seeker's family, who come from Salas-e Babajani in Kermanshah province, western Iran, had settled in the Al-Tash camp in Ramadi, central Iraq, in 1979. In 2005, after the fall of...

Turkish police has detained nine Iranian Kurdish asylum seekers and 57 others from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq near Istanbul on 21 August. On 24 August, authorities have deported these civilians to Syria’s north-western Azaz, raising concerns about their fate. The nine asylum seekers officially entered Turkey from Iran in the past few months and were trying to reach Europe by boat. Reportedly, the names of these...