Kurdish cleric, Mamosta Loqman Amini sentenced to three years and one month in prison and permanently defrocked

Hengaw – Saturday, August 30, 2025 

Mamosta Loqman Amini, a Kurdish religious activist from Javanrud and the imam of the “Chahar Yaran Nabi” Grand Mosque in Sanandaj (Sine), has been sentenced by the Special Clerical Court in Tehran to three years and one month in prison. He has also been permanently stripped of his clerical status. During the Women, Life, Freedom (Jin, Jiyan, Azadi) uprising, he was previously arrested and sentenced to 11 years in prison. 

According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Loqman Amini was recently convicted by the Special Clerical Court in Tehran on charges of “insulting Islamic sanctities”. Hengaw has learned that this ruling is final and carries no legal avenue for appeal or judicial review. 

On April 21, 2025, Amini was summoned to the Special Clerical Court in Hamedan, where he was arrested and transferred to prison. After 43 days in detention, he was temporarily released on June 2, 2025, upon posting bail. 

Previously, the Kurdish cleric had also been sentenced by the Special Clerical Court in Hamedan to five years in prison for “possession of a handgun,” one year for “propaganda against the state in favor of Kurdish parties,” and another five years for “incitement to unrest and support for protesters.” 

In addition to permanent defrocking, he has been barred for life from delivering sermons and sentenced to two years of internal exile in Ardabil as part of his supplementary punishment. 

Loqman Amini was also previously arrested on January 30, 2023, by government forces while traveling from Sanandaj to Marivan. He was released on bail on February 22, 2023, after about three weeks in detention, pending the outcome of judicial proceedings.