Kurdish Citizen in Iran Hangs Himself After State Intimidation

Farhad Beigi Garousi, a Kurdish citizen and a detainee from the 2022 nationwide protests in Kermanshah Province, committed suicide after continuous intimidation from Iran's security agencies.

The Hengaw Human Rights Organization reported on Saturday that Garousi, 21, who had been detained for over a year during the Woman, Life, Freedom movement sparked by the death in morality-police custody of Mahsa Amini, and was temporarily released on bail, hanged himself at his family home in the city of Sahneh.

Garousi had been under constant pressure from Iranian security agencies over the past four months, recently informed that he must present himself to Dieselabad Prison in Kermanshah, from where he would be transferred to Evin Prison in Tehran.

Garousi, along with 34-year-old Gholamreza Rasaei, had been tortured to confess to the killing of an intelligence official in Sahneh, Kermanshah Province, on November 18. Locals report that the officer, Nader Beyrami, was killed in a clash with mourners when he and his forces raided a funeral ceremony for a local poet and musician to prevent it from turning into an anti-government protest.

The Supreme Court of Iran confirmed the death sentence of Reza Rasaei in December.

Both Garousi and Rasaei belong to the Yarsan religion, which has many followers among the Kurdish population of the region. Due to fear of persecution, many Yarsanis hide their religious beliefs, with only the Abrahamic religions legal in Iran.