Iraq's Kurdish authorities hands over activist to Iran, Says advocacy group

An Iranian Kurdish activist was extradited from Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region back to Iran, the opposition group he belongs to said on Saturday, an account disputed by local authorities.

Behzad Khosrawi was arrested last week by security forces in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah and handed over to "Iranian intelligence", said the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), one of several Iranian Kurdish groups exiled for decades in northern Iraq.

"He is a member of an opposition political party... and enjoys the right to asylum as a political refugee," said the group, condemning his extradition.

Local security forces, called Asayesh, said Khosrawi was arrested "because he did not have residency" in the Kurdish region, denying he had any connection to "political activism".

Khosrawi "asked to return to the Islamic Republic of Iran" and signed a document stating this, the Asayesh added in a statement.

The KDPI said Khosrawi, a member of their party, "had been living with his mother and sister in Sulaimaniyah for more than 10 years... and their residency was in order".

He had been given refugee status by the UN refugee agency UNHCR, the KDPI said.

Iran considers the KDPI a "terrorist" organisation.

Iranian Kurdish groups, whose members are made up of Iran's long-marginalised Kurdish minority, have trained to use weapons from their outposts in northern Iraq for decades.

After several Iranian strikes on the groups, Iraqi authorities in late 2023 pledged to disarm these factions and move them from bases near the Iranian border to camps.

Tehran has accused the Kurdish opposition groups of inciting mass protest in Iran in 2022, after the death of Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police.