Hamid Hosseinnezhad Heydaranlou was a 39-year-old Kurdish man from a small village called Segrik, near Chaldoran in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. He was a husband, a father of three children, and someone who worked hard just to survive. Like many other Kurdish men in his region, he was a kolbar — a cross-border porter who carried heavy goods on his back through mountain passes at the Iran-Turkey border.
Kolbars are not smugglers in the usual sense. They are people left with almost no choice. In some Kurdish areas of Iran, unemployment is high and state neglect is deep. Kolbari is often the only way to make a living. It is a dangerous job — they walk through snow-covered mountains with 70 to 100 kilograms on their backs, just to earn $10 or $20 per trip. Many die from gunfire by border guards, mine explosions, or freezing temperatures.
On April 13, 2023, Hamid was arrested near the Turkish border in Chaldoran. He was with a group of Afghan nationals, and the authorities accused them of smuggling. At first, it seemed like a routine case. A local court approved his release on bail. But then, something changed.
The Ministry of Intelligence (MOI) stepped in and blocked the release. They took Hamid into their custody and transferred him to a detention facility in Urmia, the capital of West Azerbaijan. This move showed that the regime suspected him of something much more serious than carrying goods. It was no longer just about smuggling. It became a case about “security.”
For the next 11 months and 10 days, Hamid disappeared from public view. He was held incommunicado — meaning he was completely cut off from the outside world. No lawyer. No family visits. Only two short phone calls to his family in nearly a year. During this time, his wife and children didn’t know if he was dead or alive. They had no idea what the accusations were. They just waited and hoped.
Later, Kurdish human rights groups reported that Hamid was being held and interrogated under pressure. The state wanted him to confess to something. That something, it turned out, was deadly serious.
Kolbar or Terrorist? A Political Label
In 2024, months after his arrest, Iranian authorities revealed what they were accusing Hamid of: helping Kurdish militants carry out a deadly attack back in 2017. According to the state’s story, Hamid had helped members of the PKK — or similar Kurdish groups — sneak across the border to kill eight Iranian border guards in Chaldoran.
This wasn’t a simple accusation. Under Iranian Islamic law, this meant baghy — armed rebellion against the Islamic state. It is one of the gravest charges in the country and can lead to the death penalty. But there was a major problem: the attack happened in 2017 — six years before Hamid’s arrest. If he was truly involved, why did it take the regime so long to act?
Human rights organizations believe this wasn’t about justice or truth. It was about sending a message. Hamid was a Kurdish worker from a border village. He lived a life the regime already considered suspicious. His brother-in-law had been killed by the same security forces. Hamid was poor, a kolbar, and someone the state viewed as disposable.
The charge of terrorism was not just a legal claim — it was a political label. It was the regime’s way of saying: “We can disappear you, torture you, and kill you — and we will call it justice.”
A video released by state media shows him confessing to involvement in an operation he was not present at, after months of detention and torture. In this video, it is claimed that security officials have managed to obtain video of the battle scene. It is not clear how or from where.
The Charges and the Court
After nearly a year in secret detention, Hamid Hosseinnezhad was finally charged in 2024. The Iranian authorities accused him of helping Kurdish militants from the PKK carry out an armed attack in 2017 — an ambush in which eight border guards were killed near Chaldoran.
The accusation shocked his family. Not only was it based on events that happened six years earlier, but there was no clear evidence connecting Hamid to the incident. According to Iran’s Fars News Agency, Hamid had “helped terrorists cross the border” and guided them in the attack. The regime claimed he then helped them escape back to Turkey. These were serious charges. Under Iranian Islamic law, this made him guilty of baghy — armed rebellion against the state — a crime punishable by death.
From the beginning, Hamid denied everything. He said he was not even in Iran on the day of the attack. He insisted the charges were false and based on lies and torture. But his voice was ignored in court.
Hamid’s trial was held in Urmia, at Branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court. Judge Reza Najafzadeh was in charge. The trial lasted only a few minutes. Observers say the judge had already made up his mind.
Hamid was convicted of baghy and sentenced to death. The court claimed he had confessed to the crime. But that confession, according to Hamid and his lawyer, had been forced under torture. He had been beaten, mentally abused, and threatened for months. Hamid couldn’t even read or write properly — he was illiterate — but was made to sign documents he didn’t understand. Those documents were then used to convict him.
The judge used a legal method called “knowledge of the judge.” This means the judge can rely on his personal perspective and understanding the case — not just evidence — to decide a case. In Hamid’s trial, this was a dangerous tool. There was no real investigation into the facts. No serious look at the torture. No cross-examination of witnesses. The trial was a formality, not a search for truth.
Hamid had a strong alibi. On November 3, 2017 — the day of the attack — he said he was in Turkey with his family, doing his usual trading work. His family submitted his passport stamps showing he crossed the border. A friend even gave a written, notarized statement saying he saw Hamid and his wife in Turkey that day.
His lawyer, Osman Mozayyan, begged the court to consider this evidence. He asked for cell phone location data and CCTV footage to confirm Hamid’s alibi. The court refused. They did not even mention the passport stamps in their final ruling. The court pushed forward with the death sentence.
In early April 2025, Hamid’s appeal reached the Supreme Court. His lawyer hoped this would be a chance to correct the mistakes. But the court upheld the death sentence. They did not ask for more evidence. They did not investigate the torture. They simply repeated the lower court’s verdict and moved the case toward execution.
The decision was confirmed on April 9, 2025. Within days, the authorities set a date for Hamid’s death. His family was told the execution would take place around April 17 or 18.
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Torture, Coerced Confession, and a Family’s Fight
From the beginning, Hamid Hosseinnezhad said he was innocent. But his voice was drowned by a system built to crush anyone it targets. His confession was taken under torture. He was held in solitary confinement, with no lawyer. His family was kept in the dark. The state used fear, silence, and pressure to make him confess to something he did not do.
Human rights groups like Kurdistan Human Rights Network reported that Hamid was beaten and mentally tortured for months. He was made to sign documents he could not read. His lawyer confirmed all of this. Still, the courts refused to listen.
As the execution day came closer, his family tried everything they could. His daughter recorded a video and shared it online. She spoke directly to the public, begging people to save her father. She said: “They have no evidence. They just tortured him until he said what they wanted.” She added that security agents had threatened the family, trying to stop them from speaking. But she refused to stay silent.
Hamid’s mother, too, stood outside the courthouse in Urmia with a sign in her hand. She asked to speak to the judge. She asked for answers. But no one gave her any. On April 19, just days before the execution, she was told the case was still “under review.” This was a lie. By that time, Hamid had already been moved to an unknown location.
Secret Execution
The final days were full of confusion. On April 17, 2025, Hamid was allowed a short visit with some of his relatives in prison. He was in shackles but calm. He told them, once again, that he was innocent. That would be the last time they saw him.
That night, the authorities moved him from Urmia Central Prison and handed him back to the Ministry of Intelligence. From that point, no one knew where he was. His family, his lawyer — all were kept in the dark.
On April 21, news came: Hamid had been executed. The Islamic regime did it in secret. No final meeting with his family. No official notice. Not even a returned body. They buried him in an unknown place to stop people from gathering and mourning. It was meant to erase him quietly, without protest.
Iran Human Rights and other groups called it what it was: an extrajudicial killing. A man was executed after a show trial, based on torture, with no chance for real defense. And his family — who had done nothing wrong — were treated with cruelty until the very end.
A Pattern of Repression
Hamid’s case is not an exception. It is part of a systemic policy — one designed to intimidate, silence, and erase dissent, especially among Iran’s ethnic minorities. Kurdish regions have long faced discrimination, surveillance, and violence under the Islamic regime. The government doesn’t only target those who take up arms. It targets workers, teachers, activists, and kolbars — anyone who refuses to be invisible.
In the same period that Hamid was sentenced to death, three Kurdish women — Varisheh Moradi, Pakhshan Azizi, and Sharifeh Mohammadi — were also sentenced to death. Their cases are based on vague “security charges,” similar to Hamid’s. These women are accused of ties to banned Kurdish opposition parties and acts of “armed insurrection.” But their real “crime” is political organizing and defying the state’s order. These sentences are part of a wider strategy: to crush Kurdish resistance and instill fear in communities that have dared to protest, to organize, to survive.
The use of torture is widespread. So is the fabrication of case files, created to justify pre-written verdicts. Detainees are often denied access to lawyers until trial. Confessions extracted under torture are treated as final evidence. Families are kept uninformed, sometimes until after their loved ones are already dead. There is no transparency, no accountability, no justice.
And this repression is not limited to Kurdish areas. It is a central feature of the Islamic Republic’s survival strategy. As protests rise, the regime tightens its grip — through executions, disappearances, and fabricated charges. Each case, like Hamid’s, is both deeply personal and deeply political.
Why We Must Remember Hamid
This case echoes one of the UK’s most shameful chapters: the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven. Irish people in Britain, wrongly accused of IRA bombings in the 1970s, were convicted on forced confessions and fabricated evidence. They spent up to 15 years in prison. The police lied. The courts looked away. Years later, it was admitted — they were innocent all along.
What connected them all? Ethnic profiling. Political fear. The use of torture and lies to create an “enemy” that would justify repression. In both cases, the state decided guilt before the trial even began. In Iran today, we are watching this same machinery at work. The difference? Hamid didn’t live to see his name cleared.
Hamid Hosseinnezhad was not an enemy of the people. He was a kolbar, a worker, a father. He lived on the edge of the economy, carrying goods through freezing mountain passes to feed his family. But to the Islamic Republic, that alone made him disposable. When he was accused, tortured, and sentenced to death, the regime was not just punishing a man — it was delivering a message.
That message was clear: anyone — especially if they are Kurdish, poor, and politically unwanted — can be accused, disappeared, and killed without evidence. The regime does not need facts. It does not need proof. It only needs control. Torture becomes a tool to write its stories. Courts become stages for fake trials. Death sentences become weapons to discipline entire populations.
We must reject this silence. We must speak Hamid’s name and the names of Varisheh Moradi, Pakhshan Azizi, Sharifeh Mohammadi, and countless others — not as victims only, but as people targeted by a system that fears dignity and demands obedience.
The Islamic Republic depends on fear. But fear grows stronger in silence. Hamid’s story must be told, not just to mourn his loss, but to expose the machine that killed him. To stand with those still in prison. To say: we remember. We resist. And we will not forget.
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