According to information received by the Hana Organization for Human Rights, Shamsi Khosravi, a 44 year old Kurdish female political prisoner from Saqqez, is currently being held in Qarchak Prison in Varamin. Her case has recently been heard in Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, presided over by Abolqasem Salavati.
The charges brought against her include corruption on earth, espionage for Israel, and cooperation with Kurdish parties opposed to the Islamic Republic. These charges may serve as grounds for a death sentence, although the final verdict in the case has not yet been officially announced.
According to an informed source, the presiding judge stated during the proceedings that no punishment other than execution could be envisioned for Shamsi Khosravi. She was arrested by security forces on March 5, 2026, on the highway between Karaj and Tehran, and after approximately two months in security detention facilities, was transferred to Qarchak Prison in Varamin. According to Hana’s information, she has been denied access to legal counsel of her own choosing throughout her detention and judicial proceedings.
Concern over the fate of Shamsi Khosravi does not stem solely from the severity of the charges against her. Her case has been placed under the jurisdiction of Abolqasem Salavati, a judge well known for presiding over political and security cases. Salavati has been placed under human rights sanctions owing to his role in issuing severe sentences, including the death penalty, against political prisoners, protesters, and civil activists.
Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court has, over the past several years, become one of the most notorious branches of this court, owing to its conduct of closed door trials, its imposition of severe sentences in political and security cases, and its repeated disregard for defendants’ rights to a defense. The record of this branch reflects a lack of judicial independence and impartiality and the dominance of security considerations over the judicial process.
The Hana Organization for Human Rights emphasizes that Salavati’s record of disregarding defendants’ rights to a defense, together with the remarks attributed to him regarding the inevitability of a death sentence, has sharply heightened the risk that the verdict in this case has already been predetermined. The announcement of a punishment prior to the conclusion of proceedings, if accurate, reflects judicial prejudgment and a clear violation of the presumption of innocence, the impartiality of the court, and the defendant’s right to have her defense genuinely heard.
The denial of Shamsi Khosravi’s access to legal counsel of her own choosing has likewise deprived her of the ability to examine the evidence against her, challenge the reports of security institutions, and mount an effective defense. In a case that may result in the deprivation of life, such a violation is not a peripheral or remediable defect, but one that undermines the very legitimacy of the proceedings.
Hana holds that, based on the information available, what has taken place in Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court does not possess the essential elements of an independent, impartial, and fair judicial process. The reported proceedings bear the hallmarks not of a judicial process aimed at establishing the truth and freely weighing the evidence, but of a predetermined security scenario in which the charge, the narrative advanced by security institutions, and the intended punishment were all fixed in advance, with the court merely lending it judicial cover.