Bodies of political prisoners yet to be returned to families, two years after execution

Hebib Gulperipur

It is the second anniversary of the execution of Kurdish political prisoners Reza Ismaili Mamedi and Hebibulla Gulperipur.

Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has obtained detailed information about Golparipour’s arrest, trial and execution.

The latest information obtained just recently and published for the first time includes a handwritten letter by Golparipour, a few audio files and copies of the sentences that the Islamic Revolutionary Court and the High Court had issued and confirmed.

The information provided below was obtained from the above-mentioned files that the KHRN received.

Hbibullah Gulparipour, son of Naser Golparipour, was born in the city of Sanandaj in 1984.

The Mahabad Islamic Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Forces arrested him on 27 September 2009 while on his way from Mahabad city to Oroumiyeh city.

At the time of his arrest he had carried several books.

He was kept in the military and security detention centres of the Intelligence Ministry and the Revolutionary Guards in Mahabad, Oroumiyeh and Sanandaj, where he was subjected to physical and psychological torture to make false confessions.

He was transferred to Mahabad’s Central Prison on 18 January 2010.

He was not allowed family visits during that time in prison.

KHRN has a few audio files and handwritten letter outlining how he was tortured at the various prisons and intelligence agency jails, where he had been detained prior to his execution.

“During the 18 days I was at the IRGC detention centre in Mahabad, I was subjected to severe physical and psychological torture by my interrogators, as a result of which my right hand was fractured and started to bleed. Under the same harsh torture my left hand and foot were broken,” Habibullah said in his letter.

“I was beaten and lashed several times, my entire body turned blue and black and my skin was covered in blisters. Besides beating and lashing, I was subjected to electrocution. They even applied electrocution to my genitals, and this is how shameless my interrogators were in their actions. Electrocution burned my hands and the scars and marks are still visible on my skin,” he said.

“Another way of torturing me was hanging me with my hands and feet. I would be hung from my hands and feet for several hours and sometimes the men would even forget that I was hanging in the air for two days, and that was not enough to satisfy them, that is why they would continue to hang me over the wall with my hands and feet in the air,” he explained.

“All this torture took place during the 18 days when I was kept at the Revolutionary Guards detention centre, so that I would answer their questions to their satisfaction. Although I had already confessed to being a member of PJAK [Free Life Party of Kurdistan] for which I worked as a propaganda and cultural activist, yet it seemed my honest confessions did not satisfy my interrogators and they subjected me to all this pain and torture so that I would confess to their doubts and confirm their accusations,” he wrote.

On 15 March 2010, a very short trial session that only lasted a few minutes headed by Judge Khodadady the branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Mahabad sentenced Golparipour to death.

Golparipour was charged with PJAK membership.

He appealed the sentence and his case was sent to branch 31 of the High Court for a review of his appeal.

The High Court supported the court’s decision and confirmed the death sentence.

According to the details indicated in the sentence issued by branch 31 of the High Court, the executed political prisoner had no weapons when he was arrested and he had denied involvement in any armed operations of the party of which he was a member.

He was found guilty only for having organised a group called “Mothers for Peace” and for which he was sentenced to death because the court described such an action as Moharebeh (enmity against God)

On 15 March 2012, security forces suddenly transferred him to Semnan’s Central Prison and after being kept nearly 14 months in the dangerous prisoners’ section of the prison, he was sent to Oroumiyeh’ Central Prison on 13 May 2013.

Below is a detailed eyewitnesses’ account of Golparipour’s last moments before execution at the Oroumiyeh prison.

“The morning of 25 October 2013, at 9:00, Golparipour was summoned to the security office, where the prison officers took him there on the pretext that he had received a letter. Later, he was transferred to solitary confinement. The prison authorities told his worried fellow inmates that he was exiled to another prison.

At 15:00, prison officers went to one of the rooms in section 21, which is reserved for some political prisoners, and inspected prisoners’ belongings. Later on, the officers said that Golparipour was transferred to solitary confinement and was to be executed the next day.

The same evening Golparipour, through one of the prisoners in the jail, sent a message to Ali Ahmad Soleiman, another political prisoner, telling him that he was going to be executed and asked him to send his family members artistic materials he had produced while at the prison.

Upon hearing the message, prison officers worried that this might be a coded message, transferred Ali Ahmad Soleiman to solitary confinement, where Ali Ahmad managed to talk to Golparipour from the neighbouring cell for a few minutes.

Golparipour had asked his friends not to be concerned about him, and he would go to the gallows with dignity.

Half an hour passed, Ali Ahmad Soleiman was returned to his ward. However, he found in the same ceil two prisoners who had been charged with drug-related crimes.

Those two prisoners, Hojat Hojatifard and Yadollah Fatemi, who were executed two months later, told other political prisoners that Golparipour sang Kurdish revolutionary songs from his death row cell until Saturday morning at 5:30.

He continued to sing revolutionary songs when he was taken out from his cell with heavy presence of prison security forces that took him to be executed early in the morning of 26 October 2013.

Oroumiyeh’s judicial and security officials were present at the time of his execution.”

Two years has now passed since his execution and the authorities have not yet returned his body to his family.

Meanwhile, another Kurdish political prisoner, Ismaili Mamadi, also charged with PJAK membership, was hanged in Salmas prison the same day Golparipour was executed in Oroumiyeh prison.

The Iranian authorities also refused the return of Mamadi’s body to his family.

 

Source: Kurdistan Human Rights Network
http://kurdistanhumanrights.org/bodies-of-political-prisoners-yet-to-return-to-families-two-years-after-execution/