64 Kurd activists summoned and detained in past two weeks
Iranian security forces summoned and arrested dozens of Iranian Kurd activists in the past two weeks, in a new wave of arrests in western #Iran.
Iranian security forces summoned and arrested dozens of Iranian Kurd activists in the past two weeks, in a new wave of arrests in western Iran.
According to the Human Rights News Agency, 32 men and women were summoned or arrested in the past days by security agents or security institutions in Mahabad, Bukan, Piranshahr, and Naqadeh, in the northwestern province of West Azerbaijan, Sarvabad, Sanandaj, and Saqqez in the western province of Kurdistan, and Kermanshah, and Paveh in western Iran.
The report said some of the Kurd activists were brutally beaten upon arrest and that agents did not have arrest warrants.
The homes of the citizens were searched, and their personal belongings were confiscated.
The total number of citizens summoned or arrested in the Kurdish region of Iran in the past two weeks has reached 64 people.
A number of the citizens arrested in the past week in Bukan were identified as Hossein Mehraban, Hirash Rasoulpour, Fouad Mohammadpour, Fariba Ahmadi, Rojin Mohammadpour, Ali Zolfi, Qader Rasoulpour, Mohammad Haji Rasoulpour, Rashid Ahmadi, Mohammad Amin Ahmadi, Reza, Mohammad and Farhad Zandi.
Security forces raided Mohammad Haji Rasoulpour’s home upon arrest and confiscated his computer, smartphone, and the footage of his office surveillance camera.
On January 19, six other people identified as Rasoul Lavazeh, Karim Khalifani, Hesamuddin Khezri, Rahman Ebrahimi and Poshtivan Nabi Zargatan were detained in Piranshahr by security forces.
Others arrested included Amir Bayazidi Azar and Soran Mohammadi in Mahabad, Salman Advaei in Sarvabad, Diako Zartoshti in Naqadeh, and Abdullah Asal in Sanandaj.
On January 21, a man in Saqqez identified as Ata Rahmanzadeh was detained and transferred to an unknown location for wearing Kurdish traditional clothes in the city square in reaction to a show on state-run TV that insulted Kurdish traditional clothes.
Rahmanzadeh was previously arrested in the past years as well.
On January 18, three citizens in Paveh identified as Abdolkarim Farhadi, Saeed Sajadi and Saadi Valadbigi were also summoned to the city’s Intelligence office and were interrogated.
Some sources say security forces have threatened the detainees’ families and put them under pressure so they would not go to the media about the condition of their arrested family members.
Up to now, the reason for the arrests and charges of the 64 Iranian Kurds is unknown.
The Iranian regime is notorious for arbitrary detention. Arbitrary detention is the arrest of a person in a case in which there is no likelihood or evidence that they committed a crime against legal statute, or in which there has been no proper due process of law.
Virtually all of those detained in Iran suffer arbitrary detention as they are given no explanation as to why they are being arrested, and they are not shown any arrest warrant.
Iranians who suffer arbitrary detention are held incommunicado and their whereabouts can be concealed from their family, associates, the public population and open trial courts.
Many individuals who are arbitrarily detained suffer physical or psychological torture during interrogation, as well as extrajudicial punishment and other abuses in the hands of those detaining them.