Kaboudvand is a journalist, Kurdish human rights activist, the founder of the Kurdistan Human Rights Organization, and the managing editor of the Kurdish-Persian weekly Payam-e Mardom (“People’s Message”). He reported on human rights violations in Kurdistan from April 9th 2005, when he established the KHRO, until his arrest. A year after his arrest, a Revolutionary Court in Tehran sentenced Kaboudvand to a total of 11 years in prison — 10 years for “activities against national security” in connection with setting up the KHRO and one year for “propaganda against the regime” for communicating with international human rights organizations and for corresponding directly with Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General at the time. The court of appeals reduced the sentence to 10 years.

He was released in May 2017 after serving his full sentence, during which his health was seriously damaged and his rights as a prisoner were repeatedly violated.

Kaboudvand’s time in prison was marked by hunger strikes to protest against his treatment, the deterioration of his health and intentional medical neglect on behalf of the judiciary and prison officials. He was kept in solitary confinement for five months at Evin Prison wards 209 and 240, and prison guards notified superiors that he was suffering from mental and physical ailments. His condition worsened to the point that in April 2008 he suffered a stroke and was taken to a specialist for treatment.

In July 2010, his attorney, the prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, warned that her client was in a dire medical condition after he suffered his third heart attack in prison. “I have reported this to the officials and have asked that my client be given a [medical] leave of absence,” she said, “but as of now I have received no answers. He has been in prison for three years but he has not had even one day of furlough.”

On February 13th 2012, Kaboudvand embarked on a hunger strike that lasted 60 days after prison authorities did not grant him a leave of absence to visit his son, who was sick with cancer, in hospital.

“He needs to be transferred to a hospital for heart and prostate treatment,” his wife Parinaz Bagheban Hassani told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) in March 2012 after she was allowed to visit Kaboudvand in prison. “He suffered three heart attacks in prison, and prison doctors said he should have been taken out for treatment, but that didn’t happen. Two months ago, upon our insistence, they transferred him to a hospital for tests. The specialist doctors also determined that he needs angioplasty and he will need to have prostate surgery. However, two months later, judicial authorities have not yet allowed his transfer to a hospital and now, with his son’s critical condition, his stress and anxiety have increased. All of this is bad for his heart.”

Who Cares?

“The only answer Mohammad has ever received regarding his furlough requests is what the Deputy Tehran Prosecutor said recently,” Kaboudvand’s wife said in June 2012 following another visit. “He met with my husband in prison last week and told him: ‘Hunger strikes and the death of a political prisoner does not matter to us. It is up to you whether you wish to continue your hunger strike.’ This is the only response my husband has ever received. And they never answer any of our questions. We are really desperate. We don’t know what to do.”

In February 2016, the chief warden of Evin Prison recommended that Kaboudvand be paroled, but the prosecutor refused to consent. Instead, the judiciary opened another case against him. On May 24th 2016, he was put on trial at Branch 28 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court for “propaganda against the regime from prison.” Surprisingly, presiding judge Mohammad Moghiseh, who has been repeatedly accused of gross violations of the rights of defendants, acquitted him.

Authorities finally released Kaboudvand on May 12th 2017, after he had served 10 years. However, he continued to face further problems from the judiciary. Upon his release, he said that he had another verdict pending against him. A Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj had sentenced him to one year in prison and had banned him from journalism for five years on the charge of “confusing the public mind” in connection with his writing in the weekly Payam-e Mardom. The appeals court had upheld the verdict, but the Supreme Court reduced the sentence to six months in prison.

According to Article 134 of the new Islamic Penal Code, this sentence should have been combined with the original verdict, and he should have had to serve the maximum sentence of 10 years, but as of the date that he was released, no such action was taken. As it was, he had to serve three days extra because he had been given three days leave of absence during his entire incarceration.

In 2009, the British Press Awards honored Kaboudvand as its “International Journalist of the Year” and in January 2009 Human Rights Watch awarded him the Hellman/Hammett Grant, given on an annual basis to “writers punished by their governments for expressing opposition views, criticizing government officials or actions, or writing about topics that the government does not want reported.”