On Wednesday, January 8, Afshin Hossein Panahi, a former political prisoner and the brother of executed political prisoner Ramin Hossein Panahi, was arrested by Sanandaj Ministry of Intelligence agents without a court order and taken to an undisclosed location. According to Kurdpa, citing an informed source, security forces first apprehended him at his workplace in Sanandaj before raiding his home and conducting a search.
Afshin Hossein Panahi had recently been summoned by the Intelligence Service's press office. He previously served a one-year prison sentence in 2011 on charges of "disseminating propaganda against the Islamic Republic" after pursuing the case of his brother Ashraf Hossein Panahi’s suspicious death. He was arrested again in June 2017, just days after the detention of Ramin Hossein Panahi. In November 2017, Branch 1 of the Sanandaj Revolutionary Court sentenced him to eight and a half years in prison for "organizing Nowruz ceremonies and cooperating with a Kurdish party."
Afshin was released on parole in April 2020 after serving nearly three years. In May 2022, he was again sentenced to one year in prison by Branch 1 of the Sanandaj Revolutionary Court on charges of "propaganda in favor of groups and organizations opposed to the regime."

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