Kurdistan Human Rights Network

As the unprecedented conflict between Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran enters its 11th day, reports from cities across Iranian Kurdistan reveal a growing crackdown on Kurdish civilians and activists, amid heavy security measures. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its paramilitary Basij forces have set up checkpoints at the entry and exit points...

Security forces have arrested nine Kurdish civilians in Mahabad and surrounding villages in West Azerbaijan Province in recent days, with no information disclosed about their whereabouts, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned. On 19 June, Pouria Nasiri, a law student at Islamic Azad University of Mahabad with a previous record of arrest, was arrested without a warrant on one of the city’s streets. On...

Diako Yazdan-Panah, a Kurdish civilian from Bukan in West Azerbaijan Province, has been summoned to begin serving a two-year prison sentence previously issued by Branch 101 of the Second Criminal Court in the city. He was previously arrested on 17 June 2024 after receiving a summons from the city’s Public Security Police and was held for several days in their detention centre, where he was...

Foad Moradi, a Kurdish man from the village of Kileh Kabud in Divandarreh, Kurdistan Province, was arrested on 15 June after being summoned to the Ministry of Intelligence’s office in the city. He was contacted by telephone in recent days and asked to report to the office, where he was arrested upon arrival. Moradi had previously been arrested by Ministry of Intelligence agents on 7 September...

Kurdish labour rights activist Amjad Geryakhiz has been sentenced to six months in prison and handed a two-year suspended sentence by the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj, Kurdistan Province. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that the court convicted Geryakhiz on charges including "propaganda against the state", and formally notified him of the verdict on 7 June. Geryakhiz, from Sanandaj, Kurdistan Province, was arrested...

Iran has executed three prisoners, Masoud Nasseri, Ardeshir Soltan-Abadi, and Sajjad Moradi Motlagh, for drug-related offences at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, Alborz Province. The three men were transferred to solitary confinement on 9 June in preparation for their executions, which took place at dawn on 11 June. Moradi Motlagh, originally from Harsin, was living in Kermanshah and was the father of one child. Nasseri was...

Iran has executed prisoners Karim Hemmati and Hamzeh Yari for drug-related offences at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, Alborz Province. The men were transferred to solitary confinement on 7 June in preparation for their executions, which took place at dawn on 9 June. Hemmati, from Harsin in Kermanshah Province, was arrested around five years ago, while Yari, from Nurabad in Lorestan Province, was arrested approximately four...

Iran’s judiciary announced on Tuesday that nine prisoners accused of belonging to the Islamic State (IS) group had been executed. The statement, published by the judiciary-affiliated Mizan News Agency, provided no details on the identities of those executed or the location or circumstances of the executions. It stated only that the individuals had been arrested in February 2018 during clashes with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps...

Four prisoners, Morteza Esmaeilian, Hadi Rostami, Mehdi Shahivand and Mehdi Sharafian, who were sentenced to the amputation of four fingers on their right hands, are at imminent risk of having their sentences carried out in the central prisons of Orumiyeh and Tabriz, in the provinces of West and East Azerbaijan respectively. In late May, Esmaeilian was transferred from Orumiyeh Central Prison to Tabriz Central Prison...