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Features

Two Kurdish Activists Taken to Prison by Security Forces

October 26, 2021
OstanWire
2 min read
Environmental campaigner Roya Jalili has been sent to prison for two years for alleged membership of a Kurdish opposition group
Environmental campaigner Roya Jalili has been sent to prison for two years for alleged membership of a Kurdish opposition group
Veteran workers' rights activist Osman Esmaili has been taken to an unknown location
Veteran workers' rights activist Osman Esmaili has been taken to an unknown location

Roya Jalali, an Iranian-Kurdish environmental and civil rights activist, has been sentenced to two years in prison by Branch 1 of Sanandaj Revolutionary Court in Iranian Kurdistan.

According to the Kurdish news agency Kurdpa, Jalali, a member of the Environmental Society of Green Kurdistan, was accused of membership of a Kurdish opposition party. She was first arrested on February 2, 2020, when security forces raided her family home without a warrant and insulted them on their property.

According to Kurdpa, Jalali, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, was subjected to violence during her detention and denied access to a lawyer or family visits. She was finally released in March on a bail of 100 million tomans ($24,000).

Jalili’s husband Khabat Mafakheri was also arrested on August 27, 2020 and released on bail after four months in detention. In May 2021, he was sentenced by the same branch of the Revolutionary Court and on the same charge to four years in prison.

Elsewhere in the town of Saghez, Osman Esmaili, a well-known labor activist, was arrested in front of his house on October 20 and taken to an unknown location.

IranWire has since learned that on Monday, October 25, Esmaili was transferred to Sanandaj Central Prison and a bail of 50 million tomans ($12,000) has been set for his release.

Esmaili has repeatedly been arrested and imprisoned by security forces for peacefully defending workers’ rights. He was last detained in May along with another prominent Kurdish labor activist, Mahmoud Salehi, and later in the month, Branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Saghez sentenced Salehi and Esmaili respectively to three and six months in prison. They had been charged with “propaganda against the regime by participating in illegal gathering” for having held an event to mark International Labor Day.

Related coverage:

Exiled Iranian Kurds' Families Told: Bring Back Your Loved Ones, or We'll Kill Them

At Least 10 Kurdish Citizens Detained Over Nowruz Celebrations

Kurdish People Never Said Yes to the Islamic Republic

Labor Activists Detained as Protests Erupt in Three Provinces

Teacher and Labor Activists Jailed for Speaking Out

Iranian Army Commander Vows to 'Eliminate' Opposition in Iraqi Kurdistan

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