ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iranian authorities are seeking 7 billion tomans (over $30,000) in bail for each of two Kurdish teenagers from Takab County in West Azerbaijan province who are being held on charges of “acting against national security” and “propaganda against the system,” according to a human rights group.
The two teenagers, identified as 17-year-old Siamak Mofidi and 16-year-old Soroush Enayati, were charged with “acting against national security,” “propaganda against the system,” and “disturbing public order,” the Kurdistan Press Agency (Kurdpa) reported on Wednesday. The agency reported that a security case had been prepared against them before their arrests and that they were interrogated without access to a lawyer.
According to the agency, the teenagers were arrested on Saturday after security forces raided their homes in Takab without presenting a judicial warrant. They were initially transferred to an undisclosed location before being moved to Tehran for interrogation under heavy security measures, according to the reports.
The detainees were later transferred to Tehran’s Juvenile Correction and Rehabilitation Center in the Shahr-e Ziba neighborhood, according to multiple human rights organizations, including the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) and the Oslo-based Hengaw Human Rights Organization.
The arrests come amid continued reports of Iranian authorities detaining Kurdish individuals on national-security and political charges. Human rights groups have repeatedly reported arrests of Kurds in western Iran, often in raids on their homes and, in some cases, without judicial warrants or access to legal representation.
The case follows a wider pattern of Kurdish detainees facing security charges and heavy bail demands in Iran. In May, Hengaw reported that 17-year-old Aras Azizi, who was arrested during January protests in Saqqez, faced several security charges and was released on bail. In June, Kurdpa reported that Jalal Alavi was released after 100 days in detention on 10.5 billion tomans in bail.
Iranian authorities have intensified arrests of Kurdish activists, students and other individuals in the country’s Kurdish-majority western provinces, with rights groups reporting cases involving prolonged detention, security charges and heavy bail demands.
On Tuesday, Hengaw reported that at least 75 Kurdish people were arrested by Iranian security agencies in August, including one child, while 38 others received prison sentences during the same month. The organization said the arrests accounted for 64 percent of all arrests it recorded across Iran in August.
These waves of arrests have raised concerns internationally over Iran’s treatment of ethnic minorities, particularly Kurds. In August, UN human rights experts urged Iranian authorities to end what they described as “escalating arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment and arbitrary executions of ethnic minorities, particularly Kurdish and Baluch minorities.”
The experts said that ethnic minorities are “often arrested under broadly defined national security charges,” adding that such laws have been used, particularly against Kurds, “as a tool to repress dissent.”
