Zeynab Azizi and Sirwan Amini, a Kurdish couple from Sanandaj, Kurdistan Province, have been transferred to Hamadan Central Prison after spending weeks in incommunicado detention at a security facility in the same city. The two were arrested on charges of using Starlink satellite internet.
Azizi and her husband Amini were moved to the detention facility in Hamadan following airstrikes on the detention sites of the Ministry of Intelligence and the Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Sanandaj.
“This couple was arrested by security forces at their family home in Sanandaj on 7 March 2026 and transferred to an undisclosed location. In recent days, during several brief telephone calls, they informed their families that following their arrest in Sanandaj, they were transferred to a security detention facility in Hamadan, and have since been moved to the quarantine section of that city’s central prison,” an informed source told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
Since their arrest, both have been denied access to legal counsel and family visits. The charge against them, “using Starlink satellite internet”, was only disclosed after sustained pressure from their families.
KHRN has learned that since the outbreak of the conflict, dozens of citizens across Kurdistan have been arrested on charges of “using Starlink satellite internet” and are being held in prolonged legal uncertainty in prisons throughout the region.
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