Yousef Dehghani, Qorveh medical worker, sentenced to prison, flogging and exile

Yousef Dehghani, a medical worker in the city of Qorveh in Kurdistan province who was detained during the January 2026 uprising, has been sentenced in two separate cases to prison, flogging, exile and a fine. The human rights organisations Hengaw and HRANA reported the sentences on Tuesday, 20 October 2026.

According to these organisations, the Qorveh criminal court, presided over by Judge Hadi Khani, sentenced him to one year of ta'zir imprisonment, two years of exile to Zabol and 31 lashes. A branch of the Qorveh Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Hossein Bigdeloo, also handed him a two-year suspended prison sentence and a fine in a separate case. The amount of the fine has not been disclosed.

Arrested at his workplace

Intelligence Department forces in Qorveh arrested Yousef Dehghani in January 2026, during the nationwide uprising, at the hospital where he worked. After months in limbo he now faces these sentences. Hengaw reported that he had previously been summoned and interrogated over the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement. The charges the courts brought against him have not been made public.

A wave of sentences against January protesters

These sentences are part of a broad wave of trials of those detained in the January uprising. On Monday, Tehran's Revolutionary Court sentenced seven January protesters to a combined 60 years in prison. Alongside long prison terms, flogging and exile to remote cities such as Zabol are long-standing tools of the Islamic Republic to put pressure on protesters and their families. At the same time, the number of death sentences in protest cases is rising, and two young protesters from Isfahan, Alireza Raisi and Alireza Sepahi, were executed on 5 October.

Yousef Dehghani, a Qorveh medical worker arrested at the hospital where he worked, was sentenced to prison, 31 lashes and two years of exile to Zabol.