Kurdish Death Row Prisoner Transferred, His Lawyer Arrested

Habibollah Golparipour, sentenced to death for “membership in PJAK,” has been transferred twice in the last two weeks.

A Kurdish political prisoner sentenced to death has been transferred back to Orumiyeh Central Prison after spending 15 months inside the Semnan Central Prison, a local source told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. Habibollah Golparipour had been transferred from Semnan Central Prison to an undisclosed location in the second week of May. His lawyer, Massoud Shamsinejad, was also reportedly arrested the week of May 12, 2013.

According to the local human rights activist, on May 9, officials of Semnan Central Prison summoned Habibollah Golparipour and announced that he would need to pick up his personal effects for transfer to an undisclosed location. On May 10, the Police Intelligence Unit forces transferred the political prisoner to Mahabad Cental Prison’s solitary cells. He was then transferred again on May 11 to Orumiyeh Central Prison.

Mukrian News Agency also reported the arrest of Massoud Shamsinejad, Golparipour’s lawyer, in Orumiyeh this week. Reasons for the lawyer’s arrest have not been announced, but according to the source, he was transferred to Orumiyeh Central Prison after several hours of interrogation.

In a May 10 interview with the Campaign, Habibollah Golparipour’s family had expressed concern about his sudden transfer to an unknown location. It is not yet clear why he was transferred to Orumiyeh, but a source familiar with Golparipour’s case told the Campaign that in the years since the execution of Kurdish political prisoner Hossein Khezri in January 2011, pressure on political prisoners inside Orumiyeh Prison has increased. During recent years, political prisoners have been routinely transferred to the Intelligence Office Information Unit and pressured to provide television confessions. The Intelligence Office has also summoned political prisoners inside the Orumiyeh facility to the prison Intelligence Unit for interrogations that have lasted for hours, occasionally threatening them with exile or enforcement of their death sentences. Habibollah Golparipour’s exile in March 2012 took place under similar pressure as an act of punishment.

Mahabad IRGC Intelligence forces arrested Habibollah Golparipour on September 27, 2007, just outside Mahabad and imprisoned him at security detention centers in Mahabad, Orumiyeh, and Sanandaj. Sources close to his family told the Campaign that while in detention, he was “subjected to the most severe physical and psychological torture, to the point where his arm and leg were broken under torture.” The prisoner was then transferred to Mahabad Prison and sentenced to death by Branch One of Mahabad Revolutionary Court on March 14, 2010, in a minutes-long trial on charges of “membership in PJAK,” the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan. Golparipour embarked on a 15-day hunger strike on May 12, 2010, to protest his death sentence. However, Branch 31 of the Supreme Court upheld his death sentence.

In an open letter in March 2012, Habibollah Golparipour wrote about the psychological and physical torture he endured in the Intelligence Office detention centers in Orumiyeh and Mahabad. “In my long-term detentions and physical and psychological torture, I almost died. I filed a grievance explaining the details and sent it to various government organizations, but in this country, our voices don’t even pass through our prison cells, let alone finding an audience,” Golparipour wrote.

According to sources close to Habibollah Golparipour, he was transferred to the Central Prison of Orumiyeh on December 3, 2010, and on March 15, 2012, he was abruptly transferred from Orumiyeh Prison to the Central Prison of Semnan, where he has been kept among regular prisoners.