ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Seven Kurdish activists have been by Iranian intelligence in western Azerbaijan province and taken to an unknown location, the latest in a wave of crackdowns against Kurdish figures, a human rights watchdog reported on Wednesday.
Karim Khalifani, Husamaddin Khizri, Rahman Ibrahimi, and Rasul Lawaza, all from the city of Pihranshahr, were arrested on Tuesday by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Paris-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) said.
Mohammed Haji Rasulpour, Ali Zulfi, and former political prisoner, Qadir Rasulpour, all from Bokan, were also arrested in the past two days.
According to the KHRN, Iranian security forces raided their houses and confiscated their personal belongings. There is no information of their whereabouts or what charges were brought against them.
The arrests come just days after three Kurdish women activists were reportedly moved to an IRGC detention center in Urmia.
The women were among those detained in waves of mass arrests in Buchan, Mahabad, and Tehran earlier this month, the KHRN reported. The charges against them are also unknown.
At least 41 Kurdish activists have been arrested by security forces in various cities across Iran since January 9, the network has said. At least 13 were detained on Tuesday and Wednesday.
According to Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, at least 50 Kurds have been detained by Iranian security forces between January 11 to January 20, three of whom have been released.
On January 11, the KHRN reported at least 11 Kurdish students and activists arrested across Iran in the span of just three days.
The IRGC is known for torture and harsh treatment in its prison wards, usually holding political prisoners.
At least 2,000 people were arrested in Iran in 2019 for joining armed Kurdish forces or for activism deemed suspicious, according to data provided to Rudaw by KHRN founder Rebin Rahmani.
At least 400 people were arrested in 2020, he added.
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 labour 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.
Ethnic minority groups, including Kurds and Azeris, are disproportionately detained and more harshly sentenced for acts of political dissidence, according to a July 2019 report from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran.
