Three Student Activists Arrested in Sanandaj

HRANA News Agency – Over the past few days, three student activists, Mehdi Dohago, Milad Karimi and Soran Daneshvar, have been arrested by security agents in the city of Sanandaj.

According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), when three members of Democratic Union of Kurdish Students were summoned to the Intelligence Agency’s office in Sanandaj, they were arrested. There has been no news of them thus far. Mehdi Dohago is the secretary and Milad Karimi the deputy secretary of Democratic Union of Kurdish Students. Soran Daneshvar is responsible for the coordinating committee of the Union.

Previously, when Democratic Union of Kurdish Students was declared illegal, and the authorities shut down the Union, Mehdi Dohago was also detained, and other members were summoned to the Intelligence Agency’s office multiple times.

Democratic Union of Kurdish Students has issued a statement in relation to recent arrests. In part of the statement, the Union says, “Student organizations including the Union from the day it was established in 2004 have utilized rationality, tolerance and non-violent principles as their guiding values to independently pursuit activism within the framework of the constitution. The government’s policies towards such student organizations and the Union prove the nature of a totalitarian system aiming to purge all thoughts, voices and religious and linguistic diversity into one unit. Meanwhile, imposing heavy consequences on dissent in the society is the means by which the government is striving to reach its unattainable goals in Kurdistan.”

Last week during an orchestrated effort to increase pressure on civil and trade organizations in Kurdistan, eight member of Teachers’ Union were arrested on charges of acting against the national security, the membership in Teachers’ Union of Kurdistan and defending the families of those executed and political prisoners. The activists were later released because of the pressure exerted by teachers who attended gatherings to protest against these arrests.