SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iran executed a Kurdish political prisoner in Sanandaj on Sunday, a rights watchdog said.
Hengaw Organization for Human Rights said Haidar Qurbani was executed in Sanandaj prison at dawn of Sunday.
Qurbani was deprived of the right to meet his family before being executed, said Hengaw, which monitors human rights abuses in Iranian Kurdistan.
“Today, they called us and told us to go and meet Haider because they will transfer him to Tehran,” Hengaw cited a source close to Haidar’s family as saying.
“When we went, they took us to Sanandaj cemetery and they told us that Haidar was executed and this is his grave,” the source told Hengaw.
“They didn’t even let us to see the corpse.”
Sanandaj court’s public relations confirmed the execution of Haidar in a statement on Sunday, according to the rights organization.
The Iranian security forces has also detained Hassan Qurbani for protesting against his brother’s execution, Hengaw stated.
Qurbani alongside his wife’s brother Mahmoud Sadqy was detained in October 2016, Hengaw said. He was sentenced to death in January 2021 for being a member of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), a Kurdish armed group opposed to the Tehran government.
Iran carried out at least 246 executions in 2020, securing the “shameful place of second top executioner worldwide”, according to Amnesty International.
