Ramin Hossein-Panahi was a Kurdish Iranian executed for alleged Komala membership and convicted of baghi (armed insurrection) in a Revolutionary Court trial that international monitors called a sham.
He was arrested in Sanandaj in June 2017 after a shootout in which his brother was killed. He was held in solitary confinement for months. UN experts documented that he was not permitted access to his chosen lawyer until shortly before trial. The execution was carried out at Rajai-Shahr Prison.
The state hangs Kurdish prisoners on charges (mohareb, baghi) it does not apply at the same rate to anyone else. The 2022 protest executions did not invent the playbook. They scaled it. Iran International and Hengaw, the Kurdish human-rights monitor based in Norway, covered the case continuously across the year between arrest and execution.
Naming a Kurdish prisoner alongside Persian-language protest victims is part of refusing the segregation of grief by ethnicity that the state encourages.
What it is
Ramin Hossein-Panahi (رامین حسین پناهی) was a Kurdish Iranian from Dehgolan, Kurdistan province, executed by hanging on 8 September 2018 at the age of 22. He had been arrested in June 2017, alleged by the Iranian state to be an armed member of Komala (a Kurdish opposition party) and charged with baghi (armed insurrection). Amnesty International, the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, and Kurdish human-rights organizations documented that he was tortured in detention, denied access to his chosen lawyer for over a year, and convicted in a Revolutionary Court hearing that lasted less than an hour. His family was not informed of the execution in advance and only confirmed it through a brief call afterward.
Sources
- Amnesty International, Ramin Hossein-Panahi execution (September 2018)
- OHCHR, UN experts on Hossein-Panahi execution (September 2018)
- Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Kurdish prisoner monitoring
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