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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Tehran revolutionary court issued a second death sentence for a female Kurdish political prisoner from Sanandaj, her lawyers told an Iranian outlet on Wednesday, after the Supreme Court originally overturned her first sentence in 2025.
Varisheh Moradi a prominent Kurdish activist was convicted of “membership in a rebellious group” by Branch 15 of Tehran Revolutionary Court headed by Judge Abolqasem Salavati - the same judge who presided over her first case.
Amir Sajjadi, one of her lawyers, told the Emtedad news outlet that the ruling was delivered to the defense team on Wednesday. "According to the communicated ruling, which can be appealed to the Supreme Court within 20 days, the aforementioned branch has once again sentenced Ms. Varisheh Moradi (Mirzaei) to death on the charge of membership in a rebellious group (baghi).”
"Ms. Varisheh Moradi has absolutely not intervened in any operations against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and her activities were related to the aforementioned campaigns against ISIS in northern Syria and had no connection to the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Kaywan Azizi another lawyer, told Emtedad.
Moradi was initially arrested in August 2023 on the way to Sanandaj, according to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN). After 13 days in detention in Sanandaj, she was transferred to Tehran’s Evin prison - notorious for its reputation of human rights abuses and gross mistreatment of political prisoners - and held in solitary confinement for five months.
Her first death sentence was issued in November 2024 in a trial that was described by Amnesty international as “grossly unfair.”
During the proceedings, the court imposed the death penalty under a different legal provision from the one requested in the original indictment, the network reported.
Moradi refused to attend a hearing in September 2026, saying she did not recognize the court. In October 2024, she also went on a 20-day hunger strike to protest executions in Iran. She was briefly hospitalized after suffering digestive complications.
Her lawyers say they will appeal the latest ruling to the Supreme Court.
Several other Kurdish women rights activists have been sentenced to death, such as Pakhshan Azizi or given life imprisonment like Zaynab Jalalian, who has been behind bars for the past 18 years.
Several others have been subjected to enforced disappearance and their families have not heard from them for several months.
Marking World Day Against the Death Penalty on Saturday, HRANA released a report warning of the sharp rise in executions in Iran and calling for urgent action to halt the use of capital punishment.
According to data spanning October 10, 2025, to October 7 of this year, 2,003 individuals were executed in Iran, including 69 on political and security-related charges. The rights group recorded 932 executions and at least 125 additional death sentences in 2026 alone, highlighting the use of the death penalty as a tool of political repression and “a flagrant violation of the right to life.”
“Death sentences are systematically handed down through judicial processes that fail to meet international fair trial standards. These proceedings are routinely marked by grave violations” such as torture, forced confessions, and systemic violations of fair trial rights, the watchdog stated.
