Pakhshan Azizi, a Kurdish women’s righta activist imprisoned in Evin prison for almost a year, was sentenced to death on 23 July by the Revolutionary Court of Tehran, for membership of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK).
Judge Iman Afshari, head of Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran, issued the death sentence for Pakhshan Azizi, which was communicated to her lawyer on 24 July. Upon hearing the news, female political prisoners at Evin prison in Tehran staged a sit-in protest in the courtyard for several hours, according to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
Azizi has been deprived of the right to contact her family or receive visits from them since 6 July 2024 on the orders of Evin Prison’s security authorities. She has also been denied the right to instruct her lawyer during her detention, and was subjected to torture and duress to force her to make confessions.
In a recent open letter sent from prison, Azizi narrated the difficulties of being a woman and a Kurd in Iran, referring to the arrests of family members and her own violent arrest and the attendant severe torture she experienced. She also talks of being kept in solitary confinement for five months, her dire state of health and frequent bleeding. She stresses that all her actions as a Kurdish activist have been dedicated to addressing real-life experiences and in reaction to the historical repression of Kurdish women. She asserts that the path to a democratic society fundamentally lies in adopting democratic methods to establish a moral, political and well-ordered society.
Azizi’s death sentence was issued while Warisheh Moradi, a member of the Free Women’s Society of Eastern Kurdistan (KJAR), who was arrested in Sine (Sanandaj) at the same time, is awaiting a sentence on the same charges. Sharifeh Mohammadi, who was a member of the Coordination Committee for Labour Organisations more than a decade ago, was arrested in December of last year and sentenced to death by the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Rasht on the charge of treason on 14 July.
According to Human Rights Watch, after the nationwide Jin Jiyan Azadî (Woman, Life, Freedom) protests in 2022, the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran have clamped down on the suppression of women activists and human rights defenders and issued harsh sentences to silence opponents and dissidents.
