Mahdi Tavakoli, a Kurdish artist from Sanandaj, was abducted by security forces

Hengaw: February 17, 2023

Mahdi Tavakoli, a photographer and artist from Sanandaj was kidnapped by Iranian government forces. He had also been arrested and sentenced to prison in the past few years.

According to the report received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, on February 14, 2023, Mahdi Tawakli, photography instructor of the Kurdistan Youth Cinema Association, was taken to an unknown place after being kidnapped by government forces.

This artist has organized several exhibitions about "Yazidi refugees of Shingal and refugees of Kobani in the Kurdistan region" in Sanandaj.

In addition to numerous cases of summons by government security institutions, on Wednesday, July 12, 2017, by the first branch of the Sanandaj Islamic Revolutionary Court, he was sentenced to one year in prison and one year of suspended imprisonment for 5 years by the first branch of Sanandaj Revolutionary Court. He spent his imprisonment in Sanandaj Central Prison.

Before that, Mahdi Tavakoli was arrested by the forces of the Iranian Intelligence Department in Sanandaj together with another artist from Sanandaj named Mohammad Abdi in October of 2016. After two months of imprisonment in the detention center of the Intelligence Department and the central prison of Sanandaj, he was released from prison by posting bail of 300 million tomans.