Ongoing security crackdown in Kurdistan: Five, including two former political prisoners, arrested
Hengaw— Wednesday, July 2, 2025
Five Kurdish men — Amir (Hajar) Abdollapour, Awat Alipour, Anwar Ebrahimzadeh, Smko Maroufi, and Esmail Saniar (both former political prisoners from Bukan) — have been arrested by security forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran and taken to undisclosed locations.
According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, at 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday, July 2, 2025, Esmail Saniar, a 45-year-old father of two and former political prisoner from Dashband village in district of Bukan, was arrested.
Saniar had previously been sentenced in January 2017 to two years and six months in prison by Branch 10 of the Urmia Court of Appeals on charges of affiliation with the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK). He was later imprisoned to serve this sentence and released under a Newroz amnesty in April 2020.
On Tuesday, July 1, 2025, Awat Alipour, from the village of Sheykhlar near Bukan, and Anwar Ebrahimzadeh, a 36-year-old resident of Bukan, were also arrested by forces from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Intelligence Organization.
On Monday, June 30, 2025, Smko Maroufi — an environmental activist and former political prisoner from Bukan — was arrested. Maroufi had previously been arrested and sentenced to prison in two separate cases related to his activism.
Additionally, on Wednesday, June 18, 2025, Amir Abdollapour from Bukan was arrested by security forces at his private residence. Fourteen days later, there is still no information regarding his whereabouts or condition.
No detailed information is available about the reasons for the arrests, the charges brought against these individuals, or their current place of detention.
