Kurdistan Human Rights Network

The detained Kurdish civilians Musa Esmaeili and Peyman Galvani have been tortured to death over the past two days in the Ministry of Intelligence detention centre in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan province, north-west Iran. Esmaeili, a 31-year-old father of two, was arrested by security forces on 7 May in the village of Pasveh in Piranshahr, West Azerbaijan province, and taken to the Ministry of Intelligence detention...

The Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) took the detained reporter of Kurdpress News Agency in Qorveh named Ziba Omidifar to the Kowsar Hospital in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province, on 15 December after torturing her for a week. The IRGC intelligence agency arrested Omidifar a week earlier and took her to the detention centre of the security institution in Sanandaj. Reportedly, the Kurdish journalist...

A Kurdish rapper and singer named Saman Yasin (Seydi), who is held in Tehran's Evin Prison on charges of "enmity against God" (moharebeh), has been subjected to severe physical and mental torture to make a confession on TV. The tortures the artist was subjected to include being kept in a very cold place for three successive days, severe beatings and being thrown from a height. On...

A young Kurdish man arrested by Iranian police on "drug-related" charges in Tehran on 7 April, has lost his life suspiciously in a police detention centre. The family of the 25-year-old Milad Jafari, from Kermanshah in western Iran, claimed that their son had lost his life due to "torture". "Milad Jafari was violently arrested by officers of the Criminal Investigation Department on 7 April, along with...

15 human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, Frontline Defenders, Article 19, Together against the Death Penalty (EPCM), Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) and 10 national NGOs, have issued a statement requesting international bodies such as the UN to take necessary action to stop the Iranian government’s harassment and persecution of the Iran Atrocities (Aban) Tribunal witnesses and their families. Since November 2021, after the first...

Prison officers in Iran's western Ilam prison have severely tortured a prisoner named Shahram Mohammad-Beigi and transferred him to quarantine on 16 February. The prisoner has gone on a hunger strike on the morning of 17 February to protest against the torture. Reportedly, prison officials did not allow Mohammad-Beigi's family to visit him on 16 February. In the evening of the same day, the prisoner again requested...

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...

A court official in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan province, confirmed the detention of Edris Feqhi, a member of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) after the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) reported that he was alive and held by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). On 28 September, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) published a report saying it had obtained information that Edris Feqhi, previously...

Officers in Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary have beaten to death a 23-year-old civilian named Amir Hossein Hatami on 22 September after he spent about ten days in the prison. The families and relatives of the civilian, who comes from Ilam province, gathered in front of the prison on 25 September, demanding that the prison authorities be held accountable for Hatami’s death. However, so far, the authorities...