Two weeks since detention of former Kurdish death row prisoner Saman Karimi and wife Farzaneh Rashidi; Whereabouts unknown
Hengaw: Saturday, June 7, 2025
More than two weeks after the arrest of former political prisoner Saman Karimi—whose death sentence was previously overturned by Iran’s Supreme Court—and his wife, Farzaneh Rashidi, a university student, their whereabouts and condition remain unknown.
According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the Kurdish couple was detained on Sunday, May 25, 2025, by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence in Baneh. Despite the passage of more than two weeks, no official information has been provided regarding their location or any charges brought against them.
A source close to the family told Hengaw that Karimi, 33, has not been allowed any contact with his family since his arrest. Rashidi, 26, a student at Payam Noor University in Baneh, was permitted only a single, brief phone call.
The arrests were carried out with violence. Karimi was detained on a street in Baneh, after which security forces raided the couple’s home and arrested Rashidi.
Karimi is a former political prisoner who was initially arrested on November 8, 2018, by IRGC Intelligence forces and transferred to the Shahramfar detention center in Sanandaj. After spending one year in pre-trial detention on November 12, 2019, he was sentenced by Branch 1 of the Sanandaj Revolutionary Court—presided over by Judge Saeedi—to death and 11 years in prison on charges of armed rebellion (baghi) through membership in the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan.
In September 2020, Iran’s Supreme Court overturned the death sentence due to procedural irregularities and referred the case back to the original court. Karimi was eventually released from Sanandaj Central Prison.
On July 17, 2021, Branch 4 of the Kurdistan Provincial Court of Appeals sentenced him to four years in prison for “membership in the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan,” four years for “assembly and collusion against national security,” and one year for “propaganda against the state.” Under Iran’s sentence aggregation law, only the longest sentence—four years—was enforceable.
