Systematic crackdown on Kurdish Kolbars intensifies after Iran–Israel ceasefire: At least Three Kolbars killed
Hengaw – Friday, July 18, 2025
In the wake of the recent ceasefire between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Israel, Kurdish border couriers—known as kolbars—have faced a sharp escalation in state violence and repression. According to documentation by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, at least three Kurdish kolbars have been killed by direct fire from Iranian security forces over the past month alone.
This surge in violence coincides with a wave of public threats made by Iranian officials, who have accused kolbars of “espionage for Israel” and “smuggling military equipment.”
Documented victims of recent extrajudicial killings include:
Siwan Abdullahzadeh, 20, from the village of Hawtatash in Baneh — killed on June 28, 2025
Khaled Mohammadi, 23, from the village of Anjineh in Baneh — killed on July 8, 2025
Payam Ahmadi, from the village of Barqiru in Sarvabad — killed on July 15, 2025
Additionally, on July 4, 2025, Rezgar Mohammadi, a 42-year-old kolbar from Bukan, was seriously injured by border forces near the Hengezhal border area in Baneh. He suffered critical kidney damage and required emergency surgery.
This latest wave of violence follows inflammatory rhetoric from Iranian officials. Several authorities have publicly accused kolbars of collaborating with Israel, using national security as a pretext for escalated crackdowns. The pattern of killings, arrests, and smear campaigns reflects a systematic policy of suppression targeting Kurdish workers and their livelihoods and broader society.
On June 25, 2025—just one day after the ceasefire—three Kurdish political prisoners were executed in Urmia Central Prison:
Idris Ali and Azad Shojaei from Sardasht
Rasul Ahmad Rasul from Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region of Iraq
They were sentenced to death on charges of “espionage for Israel” and “facilitating the assassination of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.” Iran’s state-affiliated news agency Mizan confirmed the executions, referring to them as part of the judiciary’s “decisive actions against agents of the Zionist regime.”
On July 1, 2025, Hossein-Ali Haji Deligani, deputy chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s Article 90 Commission, referred to kolbars as a “security gap” and called for immediate government intervention to prevent the “transfer of espionage and military equipment through unofficial western borders.”
According to Hengaw’s data, at least 10 kolbars have been killed and 12 others wounded by direct fire from IRGC and border forces in the first half of 2025 alone—an alarming trend that highlights the growing militarization of Iran’s border policy in Kurdistan.
Since the ceasefire, border controls in Kurdistan have tightened dramatically. Kolbari has been formally banned, cutting off the primary source of income for thousands of Kurdish families and plunging already impoverished communities into deeper economic hardship.
The criminalization of kolbars, paired with fabricated accusations of espionage, is serving as a pretext for lethal force and unchecked state violence. These policies not only threaten the lives of individual workers but also destabilize entire communities.
Hengaw Organization for Human Rights strongly condemns the ongoing killings, arrests, and systematic repression of kolbars and Kurdish political prisoners in Iran.
We call on international human rights bodies, civil society organizations, and the global community to urgently respond to these grave violations and exert pressure on the Iranian government to end these brutal and unlawful practices.
