By the Australian-Kurdish Parliamentary Friendship Group:

Samkoo Khorshidi

In August 2012 it was revealed that at least 28 Kurdish prisoners had been sentenced to death on political and security-related charges inside Sanandaj, Orumiyeh, Semnan, Rajaee Shahr, and Saghez prisons. Seventeen of these individuals had received finalized death sentences and 11 had been sentenced to death at their trials in lower courts, and were awaiting appeal rulings by the Supreme Court.

Information about many of these prisoners has been limited due to the limitations security forces impose on the prisoners’ families and the unprecedented restrictions on human rights activists trying to disseminate information within an increasingly repressed social and political atmosphere.