Former Kurdish Political Prisoner Mahyar Ahmadi Sentenced to Prison in Turkey

Hengaw: Monday, December 25, 2023

Mahyar Ahmadi, an environmental activist and former Kurdish political prisoner from Sanandaj, has received a prison sentence of six years and three months from the Turkish judicial system. The charges stem from his arrest while attempting to reach Europe at the border between the Kurdistan region of Iraq and Turkey.

According to a report obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Mahyar Ahmadi, previously a Kurdish political prisoner, has been convicted by the Turkish judiciary on the charge of "membership in one of the Kurdistan parties."

Currently incarcerated in the city of "Van," Mahyar Ahmadi was apprehended on September 12, 2023, while seeking asylum in Europe. Turkish border guards detained him in the city of Hakari, situated on the border of the Kurdistan region of Iraq and Turkey, and subsequently transferred him to Van prison after a few weeks.

Having left his hometown the previous year, Mahyar Ahmadi resided in the Kurdistan region of Iraq for about a year before his arrest.

The former political prisoner, initially arrested by security forces in Sanandaj on February 6, 2018, was released on temporary bail from the central prison of the city after two months, pending the conclusion of legal proceedings. Ultimately, the Sanandaj Revolutionary Court sentenced him to three months of imprisonment and three years of suspended imprisonment for the charge of "propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran." He served his term of imprisonment in 2019.