Omar Faqihpour, a Kurdish political prisoner, released after 21 years in prison

Hengaw : on Monday, April 22, 2021 Omar Faqihpour, a Kurdish political prisoner from Bukan district of West Azerbaijan (Urmia) province , who was sentenced to life imprisonment, was pardoned and released from Urmia Central prison after 21 years .

Omar Faqihpour from Bukan and Khaled Fereydoni from Mahabad were Peshmerga members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran who were ambushed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps ( IRGC) forces in a village near Piranshahr on September 31, 2000.

They have been subjected to severe psychological and physical torture since their arrest in Piranshahr and Mahabad Intelligence Detention Centers, and have been held in the Piranshahr, Mahabad, Rajai Shahr, Karaj, and Urmia prisons.

Finally, in the fall of the same year, The Iranian Islamic  Revolutionary Court in Mahabad sentenced them to death for being members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) on charges of moharebeh( War Against God ).  This sentence was reduced to life imprisonment a few years later on April 30, 2005 by the provincial court of appeals.

Khaled Fereydoni and Omar Faghihpour were exiled to Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj on December 3, 2007, after being sentenced to life imprisonment.  The two prisoners were returned to Urmia Central Prison on Wednesday, November 15, 2017, after 10 years of imprisonment in inhumane conditions.

These two political prisoners were even deprived of health care and the right to access appropriate treatment, so much so that Omar Fiqhpour lost his left eye sight while imprisoned in Urmia Prison because prison officials refused to allow him to go to out-of-prison medical centers.

Over the past three years, Iranian security officials have repeatedly told these two prisoners that they have been pardoned and asked them to fill out forms, but each time they have not been pardoned on different pretexts and that only  Omar Faqihpour has been pardoned while this  amnesty has  not included Khalid Fereydon yet .