According to the Hana Human Rights Organization, in the early hours of Wednesday, July 2, 2025, Esmail Saniar, a civil activist and former political prisoner from Bukan, was arrested by security forces and taken to an undisclosed location.
According to information obtained from a reliable source, security forces raided Mr. Saniar’s home and arrested him without presenting a judicial warrant.
Four days after his arrest, there is still no information available to his family or the public regarding his whereabouts, physical condition, or the charges brought against him.
Esmail Saniar was previously arrested on December 13, 2015, by agents of the Bukan Intelligence Department. He was detained for one month and interrogated on charges of cooperating with human rights organizations. He was released on bail and eventually acquitted of all charges by Branch 101 of the Public Court of Bukan on March 6, 2016.
However, the Bukan Prosecutor’s Office appealed the acquittal, and the case was referred to Branch 10 of the Orumiyeh Court of Appeals. In December 2016, after two court sessions presided over by Judges Aliyar Khalilzadeh and Mohammad Hossein Rezaei, Mr. Saniar was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of “acting against national security through membership in one of the Kurdish opposition parties of the Iranian government.”
It is worth noting that Ismail Saniar was transferred to Bukan Prison in 2019 to serve his sentence, and he was released in April 2020 following a Nowruz amnesty announced by the Iranian judiciary.