The Iranian regime’s new wave of widespread arrests of Kurdish activists and citizens continues to grow. The arrests by the IRGC (Pasdaran) Intelligence Organisation and the Intelligence Agency started on January 9th.
In addition to these arrests, the security agencies have summoned and interrogated many Kurdish activists. These interrogations, lasting several hours, have included threats against the detainees.
The families of the detainees, who have had only one brief phone conversation with them, say that despite repeated enquiries the Iranian regime’s security and judicial institutions have not formally informed them about the charges and the whereabouts of their family members.
Given the very tense security situation in Iran’s Kurdish regions, protests against the arrests have been limited to calls for the release of the detainees, including a statement by more than 50 of Iran’s Kurdish political and civil activists.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network has reported that over the past few weeks at least 96 people (six men and four women) from Iran’s Kurdish minority, including civil society activists, labour rights activists, environmentalists, authors, students, former political prisoners, as well as people with no known record of activity, have been arrested by the regime’s intelligence organisations.
One of the most alarming aspects of the detainees’ treatment has been the forced “confessions” extracted by the interrogators. These are bound to be used by the Iranian regime’s courts in future sham trials for trumped up “national security” crimes.
On February 3, 37 human rights and civil society organisations – including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – issued a letter calling for the release of the Kurdish activists and other victims of “arbitrary detention” in Iran.
The Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign strongly condemns the arrest and continuing detention of all Kurdish activists and citizens in Iran and calls for their immediate and unconditional release. We urge all trade unionists, socialists and other political activists to help us in defending the rights of all workers, political prisoners and social rights’ activists in Iran.
7 February 2021
Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign
Source: Kurdistan Human Rights Network
Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign 