Afshin Hossein Panahi Released on Furlough

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Political prisoner Afshin Hossein Panahi was released on furlough from Sanandaj Prison on Saturday, October 13, 2018.

A source closed to Panahi told HRANA that Panahi purchased a few days’ freedom with a 4 billion IRR (approximately $30,000 USD) bail.

On March 26, 2018, HRANA reported on the upholding of his eight-year, six-month sentence in the Kurdistan Province Appeals Court. He was initially sentenced October 2017 by judge Saeedi in the Sanandaj Revolutionary Court on charges of “propaganda against the regime” and “collaboration with a Kurdish opposition group through participation in a Nowruz ceremony.”

Panahi, who has a history of working with local environmental institutions, was arrested in his home on June 26, 2017, following the arrest of one of his brothers, Ramin Hossein Panahi. He was also detained for inquiring into the suspicious death of another one of his brothers, Ashraf Hossein Panahi, in 2011, which earned him a charge of “propaganda against the regime.”

Pursuant to a legally ambiguous process that drew outcry from human rights institutions internationally, Panahi’s brother Ramin was hanged to death alongside Zanyar Moradi and Loghman Moradi at an undisclosed location in Tehran on September 8th, 2018.

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