EAST KURDISTAN (IRAN) Iranian Kurds in prison on drugs charges?
BasNews / FNA / Van Wilgenburg – 3.4.2014 – A group of social activists in Iran have written a letter to authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan asking for the release from custody of social activist, journalist and writer, Bahzad Khoshhali, an Iranian Kurd. Khoshhali has been in prison in Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan Region, since February 10, 2014. The letter writers have declared that the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) is now responsible for his life.
Previously, the editor-in-chief of Israel-Kurd magazine, Mawlud Afand, disappeared during a visit to Sulaimaniyah on June 8, 2012. No information has been given by the Assayish of Sulaimaniyah regarding his disappearance. Now, with the arrest of Khoshhali, Kurdish people in Iran are concerned that the Sulaimaniyah Assayish will hand him over to Iran’s security services.
On February 10, Khoshhali was arrested by the Assayish for dealing and consuming drugs in his house in Sulaimaniyah. He wrote a letter rejecting the accusation and stating that Iranian authorities were trying to have him arrested for something he had not done. He asked Kurds not to allow him to be handed over to the Iranian Government. One hundred and sixteen Kurdish social activists from Kurdish cities in Iran have signed a letter on a website asking for the release of Khoshhali, while insisting that the PUK is responsible for his life.
Khoshhali was born in 1972 in a Kurdish town of Saqqez, in western Iran, and was known for defending Kurdish rights. He left Iran in 2011 and settled in Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan Region, to evade the Iranian security services that were seeking to arrest him.
According to information acquired by BasNews, Khoshhali’s case is now being examined in Sulaimaniyah’s court, and so far no evidence has been found to uphold the accusations made against him. Furthermore, the Sulaimaniyah Assayish has claimed that a tool used for consuming drugs has been found in Khoshhali’s house, but no drugs. The leaders of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI), Hama-Saleh Qadiri and Mohammed Nazif Qadiri, told BasNews that no evidence has been found to suggest that Khoshhali used drugs.
“We have known Khoshhali as a writer, teacher, and intellectual person and I don’t think he is a drug dealer or consumer,” said Nazif Qadiri. Hama-Saleh Qadiri pointed out that Iran frequently invents false charges against Kurdish political activists to have them arrested. At the same time, he stated that it is better not to jump to conclusions but await the court’s decision in the case. “It is possible to have an agreement between two countries to hand over criminals, but there is no evidence to suggest that the KRG has handed over Kurdish social or political activists to Iran,” said Nazif Qadiri. “On the other hand, it is obvious that Afand disappeared while in the Kurdistan Region and that Khoshhali was arrested by the Kurdish security services of Sulaimaniyah.”
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Iraqi police arrested three members of the banned terrorist group, Komoleh, in the Muslim country’s Kurdistan region, media reports said.
The three terrorists, Behzad Khoshhali, Kiarash Rostami and Vahid Kamali, are Iranian nationals and were arrested by Soleymanieh police on February 10 while they were using illicit drugs, Didehban news website reported. The detained Komoleh members are presently in police custody and are being held in Soleymanieh’s Asayesh prison. After the arrest of the Komoleh’s veteran members, its secretariat in an official letter to all its members warned to keep the news confidential. Komoleh is a militant Kurdish separatist group with bases in the mountainous regions of Northern Iraq, has been carrying out numerous attacks in Western Iran, Southern Turkey and the Northeastern parts of Syria where the Kurdish populations live. The separatist group has been fighting to establish an autonomous state, or possibly a new world country, in the area after separating Kurdish regions from Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. Iranian intelligence and security officials have repeatedly accused Washington of providing military support and logistical aids for such anti-Iran terrorist groups.