Two Kurdish brothers from Abdanan arrested in Isfahan

Hengaw – Thursday, March 19, 2026

Two Kurdish brothers from Abdanan, Ilam Province, including a minor, have been arrested by Iranian government forces in Isfahan. The detainees have been identified as Mahan Hemmati, 17, and Nima Hemmati, a university student. They are the sons of Dr. Nasser Hemmati, a psychiatrist, writer, and translator who has previously been arrested multiple times.

According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the arrests took place on the evening of Wednesday, March 18, 2026, when Nima Hemmati, a master’s student in ethnomusicology at the University of Rasht, and his brother Mahan Hemmati, a 17-year-old 11th-grade photography student, were detained by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence in Isfahan.

According to informed sources, armed individuals traveling in an unmarked vehicle stopped the brothers’ car on a highway in Isfahan without presenting any warrant. The agents used handcuffs and blindfolds before forcibly transferring them to an undisclosed location.

Following repeated inquiries by the family, the Intelligence Department in Isfahan made a brief phone call stating only that the two brothers are being held in Ward “A-T”, a security detention unit in Dastgerd Prison in Isfahan, without providing any information about the reasons for their arrest or the charges against them.

The brothers are the sons of Dr. Nasser Hemmati, a well-known psychiatrist, writer, and translator. He has been arrested multiple times in recent years and was most recently sentenced, in the summer of this year, to three years and six months in prison on charges reportedly related to “acting in support of or in favor of the Israeli government.”