A 35-year-old man was apparently tortured to death in East Kurdistan. According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), Payam Abdi was arrested on 2 January in Kirmaşan (Kermanshah) for an alleged “social crime”.

The police then handed him over to officials from the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, who took the Kurd to an interrogation center. Here Abdi was beaten so badly that he fell into a coma that night and was taken to a military hospital. Doctors there diagnosed him as brain-dead, but did not inform the family about the man's condition.

For days, relatives tried to know Abdi's whereabouts after his arrest. The police in Kirmaşan are said to have recently even denied that the father of two was even arrested. It was only last Tuesday, exactly a week after Abdi's arrest, that his relatives were contacted by the Ministry of Intelligence. They were summoned to the military hospital with the words “Come and pick up your body.”

As for the cause of Abdi's death, the coroner's office stated that he choked on his food. However, the family told KHRN that the body showed obvious signs of torture, including on the head and chest area. The police in Kirmaşan have since spread the claim that Abdi was found dead in a ditch. The Kurd has now been buried in his native town of Nosûde (Nowsud) near Pawe.

The fact that people in East Kurdistan are dying in Iranian police stations, military interrogation centers and Ministry of Intelligence prisons is sadly nothing new. The regime has been taking a tough course against the people of Rojhilat for years. Everyday life is characterized by human rights violations such as arbitrary arrests, executions, extrajudicial killings and persecution. Supporters of the “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” revolt and those involved in civil society, especially in the areas of human rights and the environment, are at particular risk.