Asrin Mohammadi, originally from Bukan (Iranian Kurdistan), holds the round pendant with the photo of her brother Shariar in her hand. Tehran targeted him because he had regularly taken part in protests against the economic situation and human rights in Kurdistan for years. One day, as protests over the death of young Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in police custody filled the streets, she received a text message informing her of the death of her best friend Mohammad. When Shariar received the news, he went to the hospital and inquired about him. No one wanted to inform him, so the brother went to the morgue downtown, which was in an outbuilding, broke the glass at the entrance, entered and found the body among dozens of accumulated corpses. He picked it up and took it home. In a photo taken by his sister on his cellphone, Shariar sits on the floor of a room in front of a bundle wrapped in a white sheet.
“I wanted to give him to his parents. I felt like I owed him something,” explains Asrin in an interview with EL PAÍS. A chain of events then ended Shariar's life and led to Asrin's exile. “One night my brother fled in the car after taking part in the protests. The forces of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) – the non-government intelligence organization that exercises actual control over the country – began following him and shooting his tires. He lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a wall. Several cars surrounded him and started shooting at him. He died hours later in hospital.” He was 28 years old.
The social earthquake in Iran with the outbreak of the Women, Life and Freedom Movement at the end of 2022, which emerged after the death of Amini, triggered an unforgiving reaction from the regime last year. Today the repression continues against those who refuse to remain silent. Relatives and friends of the deceased and those imprisoned are striving for justice where there will never be any. Exile via the route that runs through the northeast towards Iraqi Kurdistan then becomes the only way out of persecution, prison and death.
Nasrin Mohammadi, who fled Iran after being harassed and beaten.ZAHIDA MEMBRADO
With just a few days left until the anniversary of Shariar's death, which took place on November 18, 2022, Asrin began planning the ceremony to honor his memory. That day he was waiting in a copy shop for the poster he wanted to take to the cemetery. Suddenly two men in civilian clothes entered the store and demanded her cell phone and purse. “I tried to escape from them but they grabbed me and threw me to the ground. Then they dragged me out of the store and put me in a car. The man sitting next to me started kissing and touching me,” Asrin recalls with obvious anger. “I started screaming and opened the car door to jump out. All I thought about was dying. They then stopped the car, handcuffed me, and covered my eyes with a piece of clothing. They forcefully pushed my head between my legs and started beating me on my back,” he recalls.
The hellish journey continued in the detention center where she was taken. There, several agents locked her in a room and began beating her. “They didn’t just hit me all over my body. They brought me a hot iron and burned my wrist and arm,” she says, overwhelmed. “I spent the night locked up and in the morning they sent me home without a cell phone and ordered me to return after a few hours to attend a hearing before the judge.” The next step Asrin took after saying goodbye to his mother was in organizing his escape with the help of contacts. She was hidden for 24 hours until a vehicle picked her up at the agreed location and took her to the border. Now, weeks later, he is trying to recover in a safe haven outside Iran.
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Persecution beyond borders
Although exile means access to a less dangerous place, Tehran maintains a network of agents and assassins abroad who can easily attack the targets it wants to eliminate. On November 16, prominent Iranian lawyer Sohrab Rahmati returned from his karate class. As he entered the house, someone held a gun to his head. “I reacted quickly and held him to twist his arm, but he fired and two bullets pierced my stomach,” he explains to EL PAÍS from a hidden location in Iraq. Since then, he has changed locations every few days with his children and his wife. He is protected by Kurdish forces but feels very unsafe. He has difficulty walking after two recent surgeries. “I can’t return home and I don’t know if I can continue my work.”
Rahmati left Iran years ago. Since 2017, he has been responsible for defending a dozen political exiles whom Tehran has tried to kill or kidnap. “We have won cases in which agents of the regime were put in prison. “Iran is pushing Baghdad to release them, but it doesn't always succeed.” This lawyer handled the case of well-known Kurdish opposition leader Qadir Qadiri, who was assassinated in Iraq in 2018. In 2021, a court convicted five people of terrorism in connection with this case. Before they attempted to assassinate him, Rahmati had received two offers from the Iranian consulate in Erbil offering him to work with them. “First they try to make friendly contact with you. If you refuse their offer, they will attack to take your life,” he says.
Lawyer Sohrab Rahmati, in one of the places where he recently sought refuge. ZAHIDA MEMBER
At 21 years old, Alireza Babaee's youth is at an end. He spent the last few months alone trying to find a place to sleep and a job to survive. Previously, he lived with his family in Sanandaj (Iran), studied at university and regularly took part in demonstrations to demand an improvement in the economy. As Amini's case became known, his activism increased. “The police came to my house and confiscated my mother’s cell phone. They asked her where I was and she said she didn’t know,” he explains. After that day, his mother took him to Tehran. They were away from home for a month, but when they returned they rejoined the protests that flooded the streets of the country before the astonished eyes of the world.
“One night at a demonstration, an officer shot me in the head with a pellet gun. Look, touch,” he says, moving his finger to a small bump that visibly protrudes on his forehead. “When they shot me, they didn't take me to the hospital because we were afraid of finding the secret service forces who were guarding the hospitals at the time looking for protesters.” His mother managed to remove some pellets from him, but after that he lived in fear and terror. Six months ago he crossed the Zagros Mountains into Iraqi Kurdistan to save his life.
What moves Hemn Khastan most today from his 25 days in detention is when his interrogator told him that he was being taken to his father's funeral. It was a lie. His father was still alive, but this judgment destroyed him. “They handcuffed me, covered my head and sat me facing the wall. They made me take off my clothes and put them back on. They then locked me in an overcrowded cell. There was no shower, just a dirty bucket. “A cellmate tried to commit suicide and they put him in an isolation cell,” he explains, adding that before his imprisonment he was offered to work as a regime collaborator. When he refused, they laid the charges against him on the table: criminal activities against the Supreme Leader and against the Islamic Republic, very serious allegations. “They told me that if I wanted to be released from prison pending trial, I would have to pay bail. I paid for it, but when I was on the street they wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Hemn was a member of an environmental group in Kurdistan and had been actively involved in demonstrations for years in this region, which was stigmatized and poorer than other areas of the country. “They came to my house and accused me of belonging to the opposition Kurdish party Komala, which is wrong,” he says. In addition to the threats, the “invention of new accusations” and the “harassment” to which he was subjected for several months, Hemn was once again the victim of deception. “One day I discovered that a girl I had met was actually a Parastoo – the name of a bird in the Persian language –,” he explains. This term refers to women who use the regime to obtain information in a sibylline way. While he was on probation, hiding and scared, his lawyer confirmed that if he attended the trial he would certainly be sentenced to several years in prison with the risk of execution. After that day Hemn left the country.
Hemn Khastan left his country after 25 days in detention.ZAHIDA MEMBRADO
After the death of Mahsa Amini, the victims' families have lost their fear of publicly denouncing targeted killings. Angry mothers screaming about the death of their children on social media. Recognizing this new front, the regime is making enormous efforts to prevent funeral ceremonies from being held and to persecute relatives who speak out.
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