Afshin Hosseinpanahi, brother of executed Kurdish political prisoner, Ramin Hosseinpanahi, arrested in Sanandaj

Hengaw: Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Afshin Hosseinpanahi, a former Kurdish political prisoner and member of the justice-seeking Hosseinpanahi family, has been arrested again by Iranian security forces. Afshin is the brother of Ramin Hosseinpanahi, a Kurdish political activist executed six years ago.

According to reports received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Afshin Hosseinpanahi, 33 and married, was arrested at his workplace in Sanandaj on Wednesday, January 8, 2025, by agents of the Intelligence Department.

Witnesses report that following his arrest, security forces raided his home with several vehicles, conducting an extensive search of the premises.

So far, there is no information regarding the reasons for Afshin’s arrest, the charges against him, or his current location and condition.

In May 2022, Afshin Hosseinpanahi was sentenced in absentia to one year in prison by Branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj, presided over by Judge Saeedi.

Previously, in November 2017, he was sentenced to eight years and six months in prison by the same court for charges including organizing Newroz celebrations and alleged collaboration with the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan. Six years of that sentence were enforceable.

Afshin was eventually released on conditional parole on April 26, 2020, after serving nearly three years of his six-year sentence.

Afshin’s younger brother, Ramin Hosseinpanahi, a 24-year-old Kurdish activist born in the village of Qoruchay in Dehgolan County, Kurdistan (Sanandaj) province was executed on September 8, 2018, along with fellow Kurdish political prisoners Zanyar and Loghman Moradi, at Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj. The Islamic Republic of Iran has not returned their bodies to their families yet.