COPENHAGEN, Denmark – He was at his job as a bus driver in Denmark when Esmail Arvand learned that his older brother, a political prisoner in Iran, had been hanged by the authorities, without notice to the family.
”I could not utter a word and did not know what to say or do,” Esmail told Rudaw at a mourning ceremony in Denmark for his dead brother, Mansour Arvand, who was executed 10 days ago in the Iranian city of Miandoab in Western Azerbaijan province.
"The message said: ‘Your brother has been hanged.’ It was really hard,” Esmail recalled. ”My thoughts were with my father and mother and Mansour's wife and two daughters.”
The 39-year-old former wrestler from Mahabad, a Kurdish city in northwestern Iran with a history of fighting for independence, had been sentenced in 2011 for the capital crime of "moharebeh," meaning "enmity against God," a vague and all-encompassing charge that Iran frequently levels against political opponents.
His family in Iran were called to the prison, where they were told Mansour had been hanged the day before, without even a chance to say goodbye to his loved ones: they include two daughters – aged seven and 17 – his widowed wife and his grandparents, who all live in Mahabad.
Esmail, two years younger than Mansour, described his brother as a "very patriotic man who proudly acknowledged his Kurdish identity." He said Mansour had studied economics at a local university and worked as a wrestler and a shopkeeper selling paints.
“He was very interested in health and sports,” Esmail recalled. “One other issue meant more to him: he was proud to be a Kurd.”
When they were not discussing politics Esmail and Mansour “were together all the time” for almost 30 years. “We relaxed together, enjoyed the time, etc.," Esmail remembered.
When Esmail fled to Denmark, presumably for his political activities, his brother stayed behind in Mahabad and was arrested. He spent months in custody of the Iranian Intelligence, or Etelaat.
A year later, he was accused of collaboration with the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran.
Mansour denied the allegations, but in 2012 was sentenced to death by the Mahabad Islamic Revolutionary Court. His brother said he was tortured in jail.
Esmail rejected the Iranian regime's charge that Mansour was guilty of "enmity against God."
"When you are against the regime, then you are accused of being against God. That’s how the system works there," he explained.
Shocked by the execution, Esmail and the KDP branch in Denmark plan demonstrations outside the Danish parliament, aiming to maintain a greater focus on the plight of Kurds in Iran.
The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center report that since President Hassan Rouhani took office in June last year with promises of pursuing moderate policies, executions have not declined.
According to Amnesty International, Iran acknowledges having executed 289 prisoners last year, the second-largest in the world. Amnesty claimed without verification that at least 454 more prisoners were executed without acknowledgment by the Iranian authorities – among them many Kurdish activists.
The Kurds are one of the largest minorities in Iran, with an estimated 8 million population. They have not legal political party in the country and some Kurdish groups have fought with Tehran over the right to self-determination, as well as cultural and linguistic rights.
According to Janne Bjerre Christensen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies and an expert on Iran, the best way to change things in Iran is to have ”pressure from inside.”
“Already now, the Iranians are having an internal debate about the executions. That could slowly press and maybe change the system from within,” Christensen said.
If the ongoing negotiations about the nuclear program between Iran and the West end successfully, “it may have a positive effect on the executions,” since the West will be better able to put pressure on Iran, Bjerre said.
Esmail, meanwhile, criticized the West for focusing so much on Iran’s nuclear program that they are neglecting other important issues such as human rights and the plight of the Kurds.
"The West only focuses on the nuclear issue and forgets the Kurds,” he complained.
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