Kurdish Prisoner Sentenced for Contacting Foreign Media and UN

Ali Ahmad Soleiman

A Kurdish prisoner charged with contacting foreign media and the office of the United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights in Iran has been sentenced to one year in prison in Orumiyeh, a local human rights activist told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. Ali Ahmad Soleiman and four other prisoners were transferred from Orumiyeh Central Prison to the city’s Intelligence Office Detention Center in October 2012.

According to the human rights activist, Ali Ahmad Soleiman was transferred to the Orumiyeh Revolutionary Court earlier this month, where he was put on trial. Last week, ten days after his trial, he was informed that Branch One of Orumiyeh Revolutionary Court had sentenced him to one year in prison. “Without referring to any evidence for this charge, the Revolutionary Court announced its verdict, referring only to his prior record, that in June 2011 Judge Chabok of Branch One of Orumiyeh Revolutionary Court had sentenced him to six months in prison on charges of ‘propaganda against the regime through providing false news to foreign media and human rights organizations,’” the source told the Campaign.

“Five Kurdish political prisoners by the names of Ahmad Tamouee, Yousef Kakeh Meimi, Jahangir Badouzadeh, Ali Ahmad Soleiman, and Mostafa Ali Ahmad, who were transferred from the Orumiyeh Central Prison to the city’s Intelligence Office Detention Center on October 11, 2012, where interrogated and tortured in prison for two months on charges of ‘contact with foreign media and the office of the UN Special Rapporteur,’ and ‘propaganda against the regime.’ On December 11, 2012, Ahmad Tamouee was exiled to Rajaee Shahr Prison in Karaj and the other four prisoners were returned to the Orumiyeh Prison. All five prisoners had been questioned and informed of their charges by Branch of the Orumiyeh Revolutionary Court,” the local activist said.

“Ali Ahmad Soleiman, a Kurdish citizen of Iraq, was arrested in the fall of 2005 in the border region of Targehvar outside of Orumiyeh. He was kept for several months inside the IRGC’s [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] detention center, where he was intensely interrogated and occasionally beaten. Later, Branch One of Orumiyeh Revolutionary Court under Judge Darvishi sentenced him to five years in prison on charges of ‘membership in PJAK [Party of Free Life of Kurdistan]’ and to six months in prison for illegal entry into the country,” the source added.

“The political prisoner has been deprived of phone calls and visits with his family throughout his detention. Over the past several years, he was frequently transferred to the Intelligence Office’s Information Unit detention center, and put under physical pressure to cooperate and provide television confessions. After he finished his prison term in 2011, the Intelligence Ministry prevented his release, claiming he still had an open case. Over the past year, he was summoned to court twice, where the Orumiyeh Prosecutor informed him that his 2005 sentence was insufficient and a request for a retrial and a new ruling for him on the same charge of ‘membership in PJAK,’ had been submitted,” said the source.