Amid mounting outrage, Kurdish opposition political parties called for a general strike on Wednesday, January 22, 2025, with small businesses, shops, and bazaars across Kurdish cities shutting down in protest. The strike was sparked by the Iranian government’s decision to sentence two Kurdish women, Pakhshan Azizi and Verisheh Moradi, to death, further escalating tensions surrounding the arrest and execution of Kurdish political prisoners.
Pakhshan Azizi, a 40-year-old Kurdish social worker, is now facing execution after the Iranian Supreme Court upheld her death sentence on January 8, 2025. The sentence, handed down by Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court and presided over by Judge Iman Afshari, convicted her of “armed rebellion against the state,” also known as baqi in Iranian law.
In a similar pattern, 39-year-old Verisheh Moradi was sentenced to death by Iran’s Revolutionary Court in Tehran in November 2024. She was convicted of “armed rebellion against the state” for her alleged membership in the Kurdish opposition group, the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK). The Iranian government also accuses Pakhshan Azizi of being a member of PJAK.
Azizi’s lawyer, Amir Raesian, and her family strongly deny these charges, asserting that the national security allegations are baseless. The family of Pakhshan Azizi maintain that she is a civilian social worker who relocated to northern Syria to assist displaced women and children impacted by the ongoing conflict. In support of her case, the family has presented evidence including her university degree in social work and documentation of her involvement with aid organizations in northern Syria. Additionally, Azizi’s lawyer has pointed out significant legal irregularities throughout the trial process that led to her death sentence.
Verisheh Moradi was arrested in August 2023, in Iran. After a trial in which her rights were severely limited, she was sentenced to death in October 5, 2024, by Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, under the presiding judge, Abolghasem Salavati. Her lawyer was formally notified of the death sentence on November 10, 2024. Moradi was convicted on charges of baghi (armed rebellion) due to her alleged membership in the Kurdish political group, PJAK.
In August 2024, while imprisoned in Evin Prison, Verisheh Moradi wrote a letter to the public, exposing the torture and ill-treatment she endured in an attempt to force confessions. In her letter, Moradi explained the charges against her, stating: “I was accused of rebellion for being a woman, a Kurd, and a seeker of a free life.” By “free life,” Moradi referred to the charges stemming from her alleged membership in the Kurdistan Free Life Party.
As a Kurdish woman, Moradi wrote: “ISIS beheads us and the Islamic Republic hangs us.” Her words expose the double violence faced by Kurdish women in the region, drawing a comparison between the brutalities of both ISIS and the Iranian government —an ongoing cycle of violence that is both physical and political.
The cases of Verisheh Moradi and Pakhshan Azizi shed light on the Iranian government’s increasing use of the death penalty against ethnic minority groups, especially the Kurds. Politically motivated charges, often tied to national security, are increasingly being wielded against Kurdish activists to silence dissent.
Human rights organizations are sounding the alarm over the blatant unfairness and opacity of Iran’s judicial processes in these cases. Prominent groups like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) have sharply criticized the trials that led to these death sentences.
Nahid Naghshbandi, acting Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch, condemned the government’s tactics, saying on January 22, 2025:
Iranian authorities are using the death penalty as a weapon to crush dissent, disproportionately targeting political activists and ethnic minorities in a deliberate effort to instill fear.
On November 26, 2024, Amnesty International sent a letter to Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the head of the Iranian judiciary, condemning the impending execution of Kurdish political prisoner Verisheh Moradi. In the letter, Amnesty underscored the grave injustices surrounding Moradi’s trial, describing it as fundamentally unfair. The organization pointed out the denial of her and her lawyer’s rights to present a defense, as well as the lack of access to crucial case files, highlighting flaws in the legal proceedings that led to her death sentence:
Verisheh Moradi’s trial, which consisted of two sessions on June 16 and October 5, 2024, was grossly unfair. During both trial sessions, the court barred both her and her lawyer from presenting a defense; her lawyer was only allowed to review her casefile after the second session concluded. Since her arrest, the authorities have prosecuted her in a separate case and carried out further reprisals against her for her peaceful activism in prison, including protests against the escalating use of the death penalty in Iran.
The coordinated protests by merchants and market workers across Kurdish cities in response to the death sentences of Pakhshan Azizi and Verisheh Moradi are not unprecedented. In the past, Kurdish bazaars and small businesses have employed similar protest actions to denounce injustices. Such demonstrations were notably seen during the Women, Life, Freedom movement when Kurdish regions endured heightened state repression for their protests.
The death sentences of Pakhshan Azizi and Verisheh Moradi mark a shift after a 14-year period in which Iranian authorities refrained from executing Kurdish women political prisoners. The last such execution occurred in 2010, when Shirin Alam Holi, a Kurdish political activist, was sentenced to death. Alam Holi’s conviction stemmed from a coerced confession, in which she allegedly admitted ties to the Kurdish opposition group PJAK (Kurdistan Free Life Party). In a letter from prison, she recounted the brutal torture and mistreatment she endured during her arrest and interrogation, which led to her forced confession.