‘We Are Alive, But in Captivity’: Letter from Imprisoned Kurdish Labor Activist

May 5, 2025 — In a letter obtained by the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), Issa Ebrahimzadeh, a Kurdish farmer and labor rights activist who is currently on a brief medical leave from Naqadeh Central Prison where he is serving a five year sentence, describes the cruelty and repression he and his family have endured for their peaceful labor activism.

Ebrahimzadeh is one of hundreds of workers and labor activists facing severe repression in Iran for demanding the most basic labor rights, livable wages, and safe working conditions. A recent report by CHRI, which includes an interview with Ebrahimzadeh’s brother, highlights the urgent plight of Iranian workers and the Iranian government’s ongoing failure to uphold its own labor laws or international labor obligations.

Ebrahimzadeh, who developed heart and intestinal conditions in prison, was denied leave even as his young, ailing son died in his absence. In a sham trial in which he was denied independent counsel and any semblance of due process, the Revolutionary Court of Oshnavieh, led by Judge Rezaei, sentenced him to five years for “membership in opposition groups,” “participation in gatherings,” “propaganda against the regime,” and “assembly and collusion” without granting him the right to independent counsel. 

On April 20, 2025, after his condition worsened from the authorities’ refusal to provide medical care, he was granted a 14-day furlough—on the condition that he cover all medical treatment costs himself.

Issa’s brutal and unlawful treatment not only reflects the Islamic Republic’s criminalization of peaceful labor activism, it also demonstrates the authorities’ disproportionally harsh punishment that it routinely metes out to activists from Iran’s minority communities, and its use of the denial of medical care to further punish political prisoners. 

Read his full letter below.

I, Issa Ebrahimzadeh, am a grieving father. A father who never even held the small, lifeless body of his child, Ariz, in his arms. A baby who hadn’t even finished learning to say ‘baba’ became a victim of the Islamic Republic’s inhumane policies. While I was in prison, my child quietly passed away—helpless, without reason, and without us being allowed even a final goodbye. This is not just a personal sorrow; this is a state crime.

And this is not the first wound. Years ago, the Islamic Republic imprisoned my brother, Behnam, for defending the rights of workers and children. During those same years, his son, Nima, fell ill and died—without being allowed even a moment with his father. Now the same pain, the same wound, has come for me. And we are still mourning under the same heavy boot.

Today, I remain imprisoned in Naghadeh Prison, with wounds on my body and soul. I suffer from shingles, gastrointestinal disease, physical pain, and lack of treatment. After much pressure and a hunger strike, I was transferred to a hospital for only two days, then returned without receiving care.

The temporary leave they granted me wasn’t out of humanity—it was out of fear of my contagious illness and the cost of treatment. And now even this leave is not being counted as part of my sentence. I am neither in prison nor free. Neither under treatment nor safe. I am simply abandoned—alone, ill, poor, and forgotten.

On the eve of International Workers’ Day, these pains and deaths must not only be remembered but transformed into a flag of resistance and solidarity. We workers in Iran face not only economic exploitation, but also political repression, imprisonment, torture, and death. This day is not one of celebration—it is a day of protest, a day of justice-seeking, a day to declare war on a regime that steals bread from our tables, children from our arms, and life from our bodies.

The Islamic Republic is not just killing us; it chains our fathers, drowns our mothers in grief, and leaves our children in unmarked graves without care. This regime seeks to silence us through physical, psychological, and economic torture. But it does not know: we will not be silent.

This is not just my story and Behnam’s. This is the story of thousands of families who, for years, under the shadow of execution, prison, poverty, and censorship, have lost their loved ones. We have the right to scream, to expose, and to demand the world not turn a blind eye to these atrocities. The blood of Ariz, Nima, and the fallen workers of Rajaei Shahr is on the hands of this child-killing, worker-crushing, anti-human regime.

I, as a father, a worker, a farmer, a political prisoner, and a human being, raise this cry to the world: We are alive, but in captivity. We are alive, but in mourning. And we will not be silent.

Until the day when no father mourns for demanding bread and freedom.

Long live International Workers’ Day,
Long live solidarity and class resistance,
Long live freedom.

Issa Ebrahimzadeh
April 2025

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