Former political prisoner Armin Khodayari detained after opposing death sentences
Hengaw – Saturday, December 20, 2025
Armin (Ehsan) Khodayari, a former Turkish political prisoner from Zanjan, was arrested by government forces in Rasht after publicly opposing recently issued death sentences. He was transferred to an undisclosed location.
According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Khodayari, 20, was arrested on Saturday, December 20, 2025, while in the city.
Sources familiar with the case said that Khodayari’s mobile phone had been confiscated by government forces during an earlier conviction. He was recently summoned under the pretext of retrieving the device. After traveling to Rasht and failing to appear as instructed, he was arrested and taken to an unknown location.
About two weeks earlier, Khodayari released a video condemning the death sentences issued against several of his former fellow prisoners. In the video, he opposed the death penalty and called for the annulment of the sentences handed down to Karim Khojasteh, Peyman Farahavar, and Manouchehr Fallah.
Khodayari had previously been convicted by the Revolutionary Court of Rasht on charges of “propaganda against the state” and “insulting the Supreme Leader” and sentenced to one year in prison. He was released from Lakan Prison in Rasht after serving his sentence.
He was also arrested in September 2024 for publishing a call to commemorate the second anniversary of the death of Jina Amini. After nearly two months of detention in the detention facility of Prison No. 2 in Rasht, he was transferred to Lakan Prison in late December of the same year.
