IRGC blocks medical leave for Kurdish political prisoner Khaled Zamani after 17 years without furlough in exile
Hengaw: Sunday, May 4, 2025
Khaled Zamani, a Kurdish political prisoner from Khoy, currently nearing the end of his seventeenth consecutive year in Yazd Central Prison, has once again been denied his right to prison leave due to the obstruction of the IRGC’s Intelligence Organization.
According to a report received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Khaled Zamani — a Kurdish political prisoner, father of three daughters and one son, and a native of Khoy — remains deprived of both prison leave and conditional release, despite having served 6,151 days behind bars.
This ongoing denial of furlough by the IRGC’s Intelligence Organization comes despite the approval of Zamani’s request by the Classification Council of Yazd Central Prison and the city’s prosecutor. His family had also provided a 10-billion toman bail to facilitate the leave.
Hengaw had previously reported on Khaled Zamani’s case, noting that although the prison authorities in Yazd and the Intelligence Office in Khoy had approved the furlough, the Khoy Office of Sentence Enforcement rejected it. A legal official from that office reportedly stated that due to Zamani’s Kurdish ethnicity and Sunni faith, he would not be granted the right to leave.
Khaled Zamani was arrested on July 1, 2008, by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and later sentenced by Branch 1 of the Urmia Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Nowrouzi, to amputation of his left hand and right foot on the charge of moharebeh (enmity against God) through membership in the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK).
Following his appeal, the Supreme Court overturned the sentence, and the Urmia Court of Appeals commuted it to 30 years of imprisonment in exile, to be served in Yazd Central Prison.
During his initial detention at the Urmia Intelligence Detention Center, Zamani was subjected to severe physical and psychological torture. He was transferred from Khoy Central Prison to Yazd Central Prison on December 21, 2009, and has since been consistently denied furlough.
It is worth noting that Fasih Yasamani, Khaled Zamani’s co-defendant, was executed on January 8, 2010, at Khoy Central Prison.
