UN Experts Urge Iran to End Escalating Targeting of Kurds and Baluch

United Nations experts have called on Iranian authorities to end the escalating arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment and arbitrary executions of ethnic minorities, particularly Kurdish and Baluch minorities.

In 2026 alone, at least 24 members of the Baluch minority and 22 members of the Kurdish minority have been executed, and many more are at imminent risk of execution, the experts said in Geneva.

They made an urgent appeal on behalf of four Kurdish individuals — Yousef Ahmadi, Raouf Sheikh Maroufi, Mohammad Faraji and Mohsen Eslamkhah — who face imminent risk of execution following proceedings allegedly marred by torture and forced confessions.

The experts described a broader pattern of systematic repression, including the death sentences imposed on Pakhshan Azizi and Varisheh Moradi, and the publication of a list of 37 Kurdish leaders and activists abroad accompanied by in absentia sentences and extradition requests. (Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights)