Evin Prison is a prison located in the Evin neighborhood of Tehran, Iran. The prison has been the primary site for the housing of Iran's political prisoners since 1972, before and after the Iranian Revolution, in a purpose-built wing nicknamed "Evin University" due to the number of students and intellectuals housed there. Evin Prison has been accused of committing "serious human rights abuses" against its political dissidents and critics of the government.
Ahmet Türk is a Turkish politician of Kurdish origin from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). He has been a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey for several terms and was elected twice as the Mayor of Mardin. He was born into a family of Kurdish clan and tribal chiefs in southeastern Turkey.
Ahmad Moftizadeh was an influential political and religious thinker among the Sunni Kurdish minority in Iranian Kurdistan. He is best known for his leading role in negotiating democratic freedoms for the Kurdish people in Iran during the country's Islamic Revolution. Moftizadeh led one of three major Kurdish factions during the Islamic Revolution that were demanding increased rights for Kurds in the new government. His negotiations ultimately failed and the new revolutionary authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran ordered the arrest of Moftizadeh and several of his followers. Moftizadeh died shortly after his release from prison on 9 February 1993 due to severe torture and mistreatment by Iranian prison authorities.
Zeynab Jalalian is a Kurdish Iranian who has been convicted a mohareb and sentenced to death by an Islamic Revolutionary Court for allegedly being a member of the Kurdish militant group PJAK, which she denies. Jalalian's sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment.
Human rights organizations have condemned Jalalian's verdict, torture, conditions of incarceration and the inattention to her medical care.
Adnan Hassanpour is an Iranian-Kurdish journalist who was sentenced to death in Iran in 2007 and reversed a year later. He was re-tried on the capital charges of espionage and working with outlawed parties. In September 2016 he was released, after almost 10 years in prison.
Anwar Hossein-Panahi is an Iranian Kurdish teacher and political activist. He was arrested on November 5, 2007, and sentenced to death by an Islamic Revolutionary Court in July 2008 on charges of acting against national security and being an enemy of God, but his sentence was later reduced to six years in prison in March 2009. He was imprisoned in Sanandaj prison before being released on bail on August 13, 2013, three months before the end of his sentence. On June 27, 2017, Anwar was arrested and transferred to Tehran where he was held for two days before being released on the condition that he not return to the Kordestan province.
The Kurdistan Communities Union is a Kurdish political organization committed to implementing Abdullah Öcalan's ideology of democratic confederalism. The KCK also serves as an umbrella group for several confederalist political parties of Kurdistan, including the Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Democratic Union Party (PYD), Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), and Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party (PÇDK). Finland and Sweden's alleged support for the KCK, is one of the points which caused Turkey to oppose Finland and Sweden's NATO accession bid.
Since 2016, the government of Turkey has conducted a series of purges, enabled by a state of emergency in reaction to the failed coup attempt in 15 July that year. The purges began with the arrest of Turkish Armed Forces personnel reportedly linked to the coup attempt but arrests were expanded to include other elements of the Turkish military, as well as civil servants and private citizens. These later actions reflected a power struggle between secularist and Islamist political elites in Turkey, affected people who were not active in nor aware of the coup, but who the government claimed were connected with the Gülen movement, an opposition group which the government blamed for the coup. Possession of books authored by Gülen was considered valid evidence of such a connection and cause for arrest.
Ramin Hossein-Panahi was an Iranian Kurdish man who was sentenced to death by the Iranian government for taking up arms against Iranian security forces in what Amnesty International alleged a "grossly unfair trial" marred by "serious torture allegations". He was executed on September 8, 2018.
Sarou Ghahremani was an Iranian Kurdish citizen who, according to some media outlets, disappeared after taking part in a protest rally against the Iranian government in Sanandaj. According to his family, on Friday, January 12, 2018, his death was reported to them after 11 days of his arrest by the Sanandaj Information Office. On January 13, his body was buried only in the presence of his parents.
Iranian Kurdistan or Eastern Kurdistan is an unofficial name for the parts of northwestern Iran with either a majority or sizable population of Kurds. Geographically, it includes the West Azerbaijan Province, Kurdistan Province, Kermanshah Province, Ilam Province and parts of Hamadan Province and Lorestan Province.
Adnan Selçuk Mızraklı is a Kurdish politician of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and former member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and Mayor of Diyarbakir.
Kameel Ahmady is a British-Iranian scholar working in the field of social anthropology, with a particular focus on gender, children, ethnic minorities, and child labour. Kameel Ahmady, born in 1972 in Naghadeh, West Azerbaijan Province, is an Iranian-British researcher and social anthropologist known for his research and activities in the fields of social anthropology and harmful traditional practices. He is the coordinator and developer of more than 11 research study books and 20 scientific articles in Persian, English, Turkish, and Kurdish on subjects such as child marriage, temporary marriage, White marriage, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), Male circumcision, child labour and children's scavenging, LGBTQ+ issues and identity and ethnicity.
Morad Tahbaz is an Iranian-American businessman and conservationist. He was born in London and holds British citizenship. Tahbaz is a co-founder of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation (PWHF). In January 2018, Iranian authorities arrested Tahbaz along with eight other PWHF-affiliated individuals.
Niloufar Bayani is an Iranian wildlife conservation biology researcher and activist. She was convicted in 2019 of espionage by Iranian authorities in a closed-door trial in Iran, and received a 10-year prison sentence.
Soheila Hejab Bidsorkhi is an Iranian lawyer, political activist, and civil rights activist.
Fateme Asadi was an Iranian Kurdish woman who was, according to the Iranian media, tortured and killed by the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI). The PDKI denied responsibility and accused the Iranian government of fabricating the report. The PDKI had detained her husband, prompting Asadi to travel to them to obtain his release. She disappeared and her remains were found 37 years later in 2021, identified by a DNA test, and buried in the Chehel Cheshmeh mountains in Divandarreh district. She was labelled a martyr by Iranian media.
Leila Hosseinzadeh is an Iranian student activist and political prisoner.
