Human Rights Concern Over the Fate of Ahwazi Detainee Ayoub Gheibi Pour

Human rights organizations and activists have expressed deep concern over the fate of Ahwazi citizen Ayoub Gheibi Pour Haji, 31, who has remained in temporary detention for more than 230 days in Sheiban Prison in the city of Ahwaz, without any formal charges brought against him a flagrant violation of both domestic laws and international standards.

According to informed human rights sources, Gheibi Pour has been held in the quarantine ward of Sheiban Prison since January 4, 2025, after being transferred there from Kerman Prison, where he had been exiled by court order following an October 2024 ruling that sentenced him to 11 years in prison with exile, on charges related to his participation in earlier protests.

Despite many months of detention, Gheibi Pour has not been brought before any court, has not faced any formal indictment, and has been denied the possibility of release on bail. This has deepened the concerns of his family and human rights defenders, who regard his continued imprisonment as arbitrary and unlawful.

A source close to his family confirmed that this detention is unrelated to his previous case, for which he had been imprisoned in 2022 after taking part in public protests.

He was then released on bail of 3 billion Iranian tomans in February 2023, raising suspicions that a new, vague, and undefined case is now being fabricated against him.

Observers note that Ayoub Gheibi Pour’s ongoing detention without trial or formal charges violates not only Iran’s own legal framework but also international standards, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the right of detainees to be informed of the reasons for their arrest and to receive the safeguards of a fair trial.

Human rights defenders argue that Gheibi Pour’s case clearly reflects the systematic policy of targeting pursued by the Iranian authorities against Ahwazi activists, using judicial tools to justify and legitimize political detention in the absence of transparency and accountability.

Rights organizations have renewed their calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Ayoub Gheibi Pour, urging authorities to disclose the circumstances of his detention, clarify the reasons for his arrest, and end the legal ambiguity surrounding his situation.

It is worth noting that Ayoub Gheibi Pour, born on January 1, 1994, was first arrested in November 2022 for his involvement in public protests and was held in Sheiban Prison before being released on bail. Today, he once again finds himself facing an uncertain fate amid the absence of justice.