In the last decade of his life, Mr. Moradi had come to believe that human rights activities, including publication and dissemination of news, and correspondence with the United Nations and human rights organizations, were more effective than armed struggle and armed activities, and was working with political and human rights organizations to that end.

Information regarding the murder of Mr. Eqbal Moradi, son of Kaleh and Hossein, was obtained through interviews conducted by the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center with Ms. Ameneh Qaderi, Mr. Moradi’s spouse (November 7, 2020) and with Mr. Sa’eed Sanandaji, Mr. Moradi’s friend and colleague (March 16, 2021), and through Mr. Moradi’s testimony with Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (January 8, 2013). The news was also published in Kurdistan Human Rights Network (July 19, 2018) and the Campaign to Defend Civil and Political Prisoners in Iran (July 18, 2018).

Additional information about this case was obtained from Kurdistan Human Rights Network (July 20 and 24, 2018), Eqbal Moradi’s interview with the Human Rights Watch (December 7, 2014), Tehran General and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office’s Official Website (September 8, 2018), Human Rights Activists in Iran’s News Agancy, HRANA (June 25, 2018), BBC Persian website (July 19, 2018), Deutsche Welle website (July 20, 2018), Kurdistan Human Rights Association (July 18, 2018), and Rafio Zamaneh website (July 18, 2018).

Mr. Moradi was a 57-year-old ethnic Kurd, born in the town of Marivan’s village of Hajmne in Kurdistan Province. He was married and had two children. He was an adherent of the Shafe’i branch of Sunni Islam. At the age of 6, Mr. Moradi went to the town of Marivan from his village in order to go to school, where he obtained his high school diploma. He was among the first people to join the Komala Party* upon its establishment in Marivan in 1979-80, and was active in the Party as a Peshmerga until 1982-83. He worked in the town of Marivan as a house painter and decorator for a time. (Boroumand Center interview, November 7, 2020).

From approximately 2001-02, Mr. Moradi resided in the city of Panjwen in Iraqi Kurdistan. According to Mr. Sa’eed Sanandaji, Mr. Moradi’s friend and colleague, Mr. Moradi had chosen Panjwen because of its proximity to Marivan and the possibility of conducting political activities there, his personal liking for the town, low living expenses, and the possibility of making a living in that region. He worked in the town of Panjwen as a street vendor and he would sometimes travel to the Iran-Iraq border in order to purchase various goods. (Boroumand Center interview, March 16, 2021; Iran Human Rights Documentation Center).

Starting in 2010, Mr. Moradi started to work with the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK)** in the human rights realm, but was not officially a member of the Party. (Boroumand Center interview, March 16, 2021).

According to Mr. Sanandaji, Mr. Moradi was a patriotic man and Kurdistan’s independence was extremely important to him. Since the mid-2000’s, Mr. Moradi had come to believe more in the effectiveness of human rights activities, including publication and dissemination of news and correspondence with the United Nations and human rights organizations, rather than armed struggle and armed activities. In an interview with Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, Mr. Moradi stated: “My activities were more political than military, and it just consisted of giving interviews, reading books, etc.” (Boroumand Center interview, November 7, 2020, and March 16, 2021; Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, January 8, 2013).

Mr. Moradi was a reputable human rights activist in Kurdistan, and played an integral part in initiating the Campaign to Defend Civil and Political Prisoners since 2008-09 until his death, as well as in initiating various campaigns and gatherings in Iraqi Kurdistan in upholding human rights, opposing the death penalty, and reporting news regarding political prisoners and refugees to the media. In 2010-11, he became a member of the Kurdistan Human Rights Association and was a member of that human rights organization’s executive council. (Campaign to Defend Civil and Political Prisoners, July 18, 2018; Boroumand Center interview, March 16, 2021).

The Kurdistan Human Rights Association was established in 2005 in Sweden and is active in the human rights realm in Kurdistan. This Association also has official branches in Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, and South Kurdistan (Iraqi Kurdistan). (Kurdistan Human Rights Association, July 18, 2018).

Mr. Moradi was an empathetic, quiet, modest, and rather shy individual, who kept his promises and was open to criticism. According to his wife, he loved to fish. (Boroumand Center interview, November 7, 2020, and March 16, 2021).

Prison and Self-imposed Exile

Mr. Moradi spent approximately 6 years in Orumieh, Sanandaj, Marivan, and Tabriz prisons because of his political and party activities in Kurdistan since the onset of the 1979 Revolution. Mr. Moradi had been sentenced to death, and was released following a general amnesty granted by Ayatollah Khomeini. He then spent 6 years in exile in the town of Shahreza in Esfahan Province. Upon returning to Marivan, he still kept being persecuted by security forces and was arrested and detained several times for short periods, without any specific charges against him. (Boroumand Center interview, November 7, 2020; Iran Human Rights Documentation Center).

Mr. Moradi fled following an attack by the Marivan Information Administration forces on his home in 2001-02, and decided to leave Iran because of repeated threats and persecution by security forces. In 2001-02, Mr. Moradi went to Iraqi Kurdistan where he was joined by his family. They resided in the city of Soleymanieh for a year, then moved to the town of Panjwen, near the Iranian border. (Boroumand Center interview, November 7, 2020; Iran Human Rights Documentation Center).

After leaving Iran, and until mid-2011, Mr. Moradi was a member of the Kurdistan Toilers Party – Komala once again. At the same time, he actively participated in civil and human rights activities, including gatherings convened against the death penalty in various towns in Iraqi Kurdistan. According to Mr. Moradi’s wife, he left Komala because he believed that the Party had deviated from the main objectives that it had set at its inception, which included defending the ideals of the Kurdish people, and became close to PJAK, which he believed was defending the Kurdish people [not just in words but] in practice. (Boroumand Center interview, November 7, 2020).

He had worked with Iranian and international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center on numerous occasions, and had provided them with information regarding Kurdish prisoners, the torture and conviction of his son, Mr. Zanyar Moradi, and his co-defendant, Loqman Moradi, which was published in their reports. (Human Rights Watch, December 7, 2014; Iran Human Rights Documentation Center).

Threats, Assassination Attempt, and Murder

In mid-July 2009, Mr. Moradi had returned to Iran to meet with a friend who was a former member of Komala. He had gone to the border town of Bashmakh, where he was shot 9 times in the back and hands by an unidentified individual armed with a handgun equipped with a silencer, but survived the assassination attempt. According to available information, the person who was supposed to meet with Mr. Moradi was simultaneously working with Iran’s Information Administration. After the failed assassination attempt, he was threatened numerous times on the phone by the Information Administration agents. In his interview with the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, Mr. Moradi stated that security agents arrested his son, Mr. Zanyar Moradi, when he told the agents in one of the phone conversations he had had with Iran’s Information Administration, that he knew the identity of the person behind the assassination attempt. According to him, there were other persons who had admitted to him on two other occasions that they had been given the mission by the Islamic Republic to assassinate him. Panjwen and Soleymannieh police had also warned Mr. Moradi multiple times, that individuals affiliated with the Iranian security forces intended to assassinate him. According to Mr. Sanandaji, Mr. Moradi’s friend and colleague, he had called on the residents of the cities of Sanandaj and Marivan to protest the arrest and death sentence pronounced against Mr. Zanyar Moradi. The people had welcomed this call because of Mr. Moradi’s great reputation. Mr. Sanandaji stated that this was the factor that aggravated the threats against Mr. Moradi. Mr. Moradi refused to leave the town of Panjwen in sspite of these threats. (Boroumand Center interview, November 7, 2020, and March 16, 2021; Iran Human Rights Documentation Center).

Mr. Moradi was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt on one occasion, and was the subject of many death threats by the Islamic Republic authorities. He believed that the purpose of the arrest and issuance of a death sentence for his son, Mr. Zanyar Moradi and his co-defendant, was to silence him.

According to available information, on Wednesday, July 18, 2018, at 11:45 AM, Mr. Moradi was shot three times in the chest, back, and arm by two unidentified individuals, along the Aliabad River in the town of Panjwen’s Halaleh Abad village, located 500 meters (0.3 miles) from the Iranian military post on the Iran border with Iraqi Kurdistan. The perpetrators fled the scene on motorcycle. According to Mr. Moradi’s wife, he had left the house at 7:30 that morning to go fishing at the river. His car was discovered by the river at 10 o’clock that night. Mr. Moradi’s body was discovered by the Panjwen police at 1:20 in the morning of July 19, 2018. (Boroumand Center interview, November 7, 2020).

According to local witnesses, at 8 o’clock in the morning of Mr. Moradi’s assassination, two individuals who were approximately 30 to 32 years old went to the Aliabad River on motorcycle, waited there for about 30 minutes, and then went to the town of Panjwen. At 10:15 in the morning of that same day, Mr. Moradi had been seen fishing at the river by himself. At approximately 11 AM, those same two motorcyclists joined him and were fishing with him until 11:45. It was at that time that the farmers heard Mr. Moradi’s scream and a loud noise resembling shots being fired. 15 minutes later, the two individuals left the scene, going toward Panjwen’s Halaleh Abad village. (Boroumand Center interview, November 7, 2020).

A short time after Mr. Moradi’s assassination, Mr. Zanayar Moradi, his son, was executed at the city of Karaj’s Rajaishahr Prison on September 8, 2018. (Website of the Tehran General and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office, September 8, 2018).

Iranian Authorities’ Reaction

Islamic Republic of Iran authorities did not officially react to Mr. Moradi’s assassination.

Iraqi Kurdistan Region’s Officials’ Reaction

Mr. Moradi’s body was taken to the Soleymanieh Medical Examiner’s Office. However, the Medical Examiner’s report was only provided to the Kurdistan Region’s Security Administration and Mr. Moradi’s family has no information about the report’s findings. In conducting their investigations into Mr. Moradi’s murder, judicial authorities in Soleymanieh summoned witnesses who had seen Mr. Moradi and the perpetrators fishing together. Ultimately, however, they announced to Mr. Moradi’s family that they had no information regarding the identity of the perpetrators and those who had given the order to assassinate him. (Boroumand Center interview, November 7, 2020).

On the anniversary of Mr. Moradi’s assassination, the Kurdistan Region Security Administration did not allow his family and friends and human rights activists to hold commemorative services for him. (Campaign to Defend Civil and Political Prisoners, July 18, 2019).

Family and Friends’ Reaction

Mr. Moradi’s family followed up on his assassination in the Soleymanieh court, but they did not receive a resposnse with regard to the identity of the perpetrators and those who had given the order to assassinate him, therefore his case remained open. (Boroumand Center interview, November 7, 2020, and March 16, 2021).

In a letter from prison regarding his father’s assassination, Mr. Zanyar Moradi, Mr. Moradi’s son wrote: “My dearest heartbroken mother: In the ten years of my captivity, everyone who knows us knows that the reason for all this pain and separation, and all my years of enduring life with the prospect of the hanging rope around my neck, was to take revenge on my father. I truly believe, however, that even though he was deeply scarred by my ten years of captivity and ultimately became the victim of this dreadful tragedy, the thought of taking revenge never entered my father’ mind because for him, the dream of a beautiful world [was antithetical to and] would never materialize alongside [the concepts of] execution and revenge. Now that my father’s physical body is no longer among us, for his sake and for the sake of his high ideals, be the rock that you have always been for my sister Dideh, be a haven and a place of refuge for her, and do net let hatred and revenge take hold of her. This time, my father must be reborn in the body of my Dideh. This rebirth will never [be possible and] will never have meaning without your teachings. (Kurdistan Human Rights Network, July 24, 2018).

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* In the mid 1960’s, several remaining members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran established the Revolutionary Organization of this party in Iraq. Among its leaders were Esma’il Sharifzadeh, Abdollah Mo’ini, and Mola’avareh, who began an armed guerrilla struggle in Kurdistan inspired by the Cuban Revolution. The group was defeated in 1969 and several of its members arrested. The Revolutionary Organization of Working People in Kurdistan (Komala) was established upon the release of a number of the leaders in 1978. After the revolution, in accordance with Marxist theory, Komala opposed capitalists and landlords, and encouraged workers and peasants in Kurdistan, in particular in the city of Sanandaj and vicinity where they had strong support, to initiate an armed uprising against capitalists, landlords and the central government. In 1982, Komala joined another Marxist group, Sahand, an organization concentrating mainly on theory and ideology, and established the Communist Party of Iran. Komala subsequently adopted the name “The Kurdistan Organization of the Communist Party of Iran, Komala.” By the mid-1980s, the central government had succeeded in pushing Komala fighters out of Kurdistan and into Northern Iraq. Years later, Komala split from the Communist Party of Iran and faced several schisms, each continuing to use the name Komala.

** Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK) is a leftist organization established in January 2004 with the aim of creating "an ecological-democratic society with gender equality" within the framework of a democratic and federal government in Iran where autonomy is granted to all ethnic minorities. It held its first congress on 25 April 2004. The party has a very close relationship with the PKK Party in Turkey, and regards Apo "Abdullah Ocalan" as its spiritual leader. PJAK has influence mainly in the northern parts of Iranian Kurdistan, where it is engaged in an armed struggle against the Islamic Republic. PJAK refers to Iranian Kurdistan as East Kurdistan.