Execution looms as Kurdish prisoner of conscience Mehdi Asgharzadeh transferred to Ghezel Hesar Prison, Karaj

Hengaw - Sunday, August 3, 2025

Mehdi Asgharzadeh, a Kurdish religious prisoner from Javanrud, was transferred from Dizelabad Prison in Kermanshah to Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj a week ago for the implementation of his death sentence. He was arrested 10 years ago and sentenced to death two years ago.

According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, on Monday, July 28, 2025, 35-year-old Asgharzadeh was moved from Dizelabad Prison to solitary confinement in Ghezel Hesar Prison in preparation for his execution. The Supreme Court has upheld his death sentence twice, and his verdict explicitly states that his body will not be returned to his family.

Hengaw has warned of the risk of a secret execution and called on all human rights and international organizations to take urgent action to prevent the carrying out of this sentence.

Sources report that Asgharzadeh was arrested in Javanrud in 2016 after returning from Syria. Following two years in solitary confinement in Tehran, he was transferred to Dizelabad Prison, where he has spent the past eight years.

In autumn 2023, Branch 2 of the Kermanshah Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Shahrokh Moradi, sentenced him to death on the charge of “armed insurrection against the Islamic Republic of Iran” and to three years in prison for “membership in the terrorist group ISIS.” The verdict was formally issued to him on December 16, 2023.

Hengaw has obtained a copy of the court ruling, which confirms that his body will not be returned to his family after the execution.

According to Hengaw’s findings, Asgharzadeh was subjected to severe torture during his detention and forced to make self-incriminating confessions under duress.