ALM Feature

Fleeing repression, Iran's Kurdish activists struggle to find refuge in Iraq

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq has become a key escape route for an unknown number of Iranian Kurds fleeing brutal repression and torture in Iran, but most fail to find security and stability in Iraq.
A man and a woman hold up a banner depicting the image of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died while in the custody of Iranian authorities, during a demonstration denouncing her death by Iraqi and Iranian Kurds outside the UN offices in Arbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, on September 24, 2022. (Photo by SAFIN HAMED/AFP via Getty Images)
A man and a woman hold up a banner depicting the image of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died while in the custody of Iranian authorities, during a demonstration denouncing her death by Iraqi and Iranian Kurds outside the UN offices in Arbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, on September 24, 2022. (Photo by SAFIN HAMED/AFP via Getty Images) - Safin Hamed/AFP via Getty Images
lysemauvais.jpg
Lyse Mauvais
@lyse_mauvais

ERBIL — Since his release from an Iranian prison a month ago, Kayvan Samadi has been hiding in a safe house in the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, waiting for his wounds to heal. 

“I am getting better day after day, but I’m not what I was before prison,” he told Al-Monitor, sitting in the guest room of a safe house in Iraqi Kurdistan. Samadi has seen seven doctors since arriving in Iraq on Christmas day, escaping Iran after three weeks of detention and torture last October. 

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