Kurdish activist sentenced to death in Iran
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A Kurdish political prisoner has been sentenced to death by a court in Urmia, the Kurdish human rights organization Hengaw reported on Sunday.
On Aug. 20, the Second Branch of the Revolutionary Court of Urmia condemned Mohyeddin Ebrahimi to death on charges of membership in the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI).The verdict was officially announced to him on Saturday.
On its official Twitter account on Monday, the PDKI said Ebrahimi was sentenced to death but did not confirm his membership in the group, describing him as a political activist.
Hengaw reported that the Kurdish political prisoner was denied the right to a lawyer.
On Nov. 4, 2017, Ebrahimi was shot at a checkpoint on Oshnavieh in Iran while working as a kulbar—the Kurdish term for people who carry goods on their backs to earn a living.
After this, he was arrested and has been kept at the Urmia Intelligence Forces Prison and the Central Prison of Urmia since then.
The 40-year-old Kurd is from the village of Alkawi which is part of Oshnavieh country in West Azerbaijan Province.
Iranian security forces have arrested Ebrahimi in the past, imprisoning him for 14 months.
His brother, Nour Al-Din Ebrahimi, was also shot dead by Iranian security forces in April 2016 while working as a border courier, Hengaw said.
In the past month, security forces in Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhilat) detained 36 Kurds, according to statistics by Hengaw. And in the past six months, Iran has hanged over 40 Iranian Kurds and sentenced just under a dozen other activists to death.
“The death sentences of 44 Kurdish citizens have been implemented in nine prisons” in the country, most of which were in “Urmia, Kermanshah [Kermanshan], and Karaj,” a statement by the human rights organization read.
Recent cases that garnered international attention were that of Ramin Hossein Panahi and two cousins Loghman and Zanyar Moradi who were executed on Sept. 8. In total, six Kurdish political prisoners were killed since then.
On the same day that all three were put to death, Iran carried out a cross-border missile attack on the headquarters of two Iranian Kurdish opposition parties in the Kurdistan Region’s town of Koya, reportedly killing 15 people and injuring 42 others.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany