ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The sentences of three Kurds adding up to a total of 15 years in prison have been confirmed by a top court in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province’s city of Piranshahr, a human rights group confirmed on Tuesday. This comes amid calls for a national referendum for the transition to a secular and democratic government.
Arrested by security forces in October 2020, Shoresh Abdullah Nejad, Najmaddin Sokhnour, and Salah Ali from the village of Girgolsofli, near the Kurdish city of Piranshahr, were sentenced to five years in prison each in February by Piranshahr’s Revolutionary Court, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRNA). Their sentences were confirmed on Tuesday by the province’s Court of Appeals, says the NGO that monitors human rights violations across Iran.
Iran Human Rights Watch said they were sentenced on charges of collaborating and membership of an opposition party, namely the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iran (KDPI), an armed Kurdish group in opposition to Tehran.
According to a monthly report on arrests by Paris-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) released on Monday, at least 14 Kurdish citizens and activists have been arrested in seven different cities in Iran’s Kurdish areas in a month, 30 more were questioned and later released. The watchdog has documented two executions being carried out in the same time span.
In early March, the UN human rights chief condemned Iranian state violence against Kurds and Balochis, and expressed alarm over the crackdown on minorities.
More than 100 civil and political activists addressed a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, UN Security Council and US Ambassador to UN, Linda Thomas Greenfield, calling the Iranian government a “thief” and called for the support of civic institutions, asking for a national referendum for the transition to a secular democratic government and constitution, reports Voice of America (VOA) on Wednesday.
This comes after more than 640 civil and political activists on Tuesday signed a letter to UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran Javid Rahman on the mistreatment of political prisoners and against the increasing moving of prisoners in Tehran to other cities.
On June 17, dozens of human rights groups and organizations sent a joint letter to UN Human Rights Council to extend the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur monitoring the situation of human rights in Iran, accusing the Iranian government of “wide range of human rights violations” in the letter, according to Radio Farda.
On Tuesday, the Human Rights Council extended the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur Javid Rahman, who was appointed more than three years ago. His mandate has been extended every year since due to the worrying human rights situation in Iran, despite not being allowed to visit the country for close monitoring, reports Radio France International (RFI).
Iran’s UN envoy Esmaeli Baghaei Hamaneh said appointing a special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran is invalid during his remarks at a Human Rights Council session, Iranian state media IRNA reported on Wednesday, describing it as an “anti-Iran resolution.”
“Supporters of the decision expect nothing but receiving black reports on Iran from the special rapporteur,” Hamaneh has said, saying the acts of countries that support the resolution are contradictory to their word, such as US, “has long record in committing organized crimes across the world” and has imposed “the most inhumane sanctions against the Iranian people.”
Iranian foreign minister Saeed Khatibzadeh also rejected the resolution on Wednesday, saying that the “destructive approach” by the supporters of the resolution is an “instrumental and political use of human rights.”
Since the heightening of US-Iran tensions and the re-imposition of US sanctions on Iran in 2018, Iranian authorities have tightened the noose on labor activists, journalists, satirists, environmentalists, anti-death penalty campaigners, and researchers, detaining them in droves and sentencing some in trials whose fairness has been questioned.
Tens of thousands of people are held as political prisoners in Iranian jails, for charges including advocating for democracy and promoting women's or workers' rights.
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