IWAC – Follow-Up Report on Khabat Fadaei, 29 year old popular poet and musician, Kurdish labor and civil activist, native of Boridar village of Sarovabad, Sanandaj city, resident of Tehran, according to the report of Human Rights in Iran, on the 23rd of Sept. 2022, during the uprising and popular resistance, was kidnapped by security officers in Varamin. During this arrest, his mobile phone, car and personal library were confiscated. According to Kurdish human right news agencies’ reports, after 25 days since his arrest, there is still no information about his place of detention, the arresting agency, and the legal basis of his arrest. According to an informed source, during the detention of Khabat Fadaei, the family of this popular artist was under pressure and constantly received threats from the security. And while his wife visited the Evin prison every day to find out about his condition, she was faced with the disrespectful behavior of the prison officers. In a similar report, it was announced that both his and his wife’s bank accounts were blocked by the security agencies. After nearly forty days of detention in the Evin prison, after going through the process of interrogation and the explanation of charges, on November 14th with bail, he was released temporarily and until the end of the court proceedings. During his detention, he was denied the right to access a lawyer and visiting his family, and he was only allowed to make a few phone calls. Khabat Fadaei was sentenced, on the 25th of February, 2023, to six years of imprisonment by the first branch of the Revolution Court of Varamin city, chaired by Judge Ashkan Ramesh. According to Kurdish human right news agencies’ reports, this popular artist was sentenced to one year in prison on the charge of “propaganda against the regime” and five years in prison on the charge of “membership in a group with the aim of disrupting the country’s security,” which according to the penal accumulation act, this artist’s sentence comes to five years of imprisonment. This sentence was given to him in mid-Feb. and was issued despite the government and the IRGC media’s extensive advertisements campaign on the “general amnesty of the Supreme Leader.” Such cases indicate that the pressures and issuance of heavy sentences for the protesters in the nationwide uprising in Iran is still continues.
However, on that note, the severity in the treatment against such popular artistic figures, especially when those celebrities who belong to minorities (or, better say, marginalized groups) are targeted, takes on more draconian dominions and meets no shortage of examples in the course of Zhina (Mahsa) Movement, such as the case of the award-winning and praised Kurdish actor and former political activist, Moselm Ja’fari Ramshti, who was put under extreme torture and physical and mental pressure for a very long time, or Mahvash Sabet, a 70 year old Bayahi poet and teacher, who just received her second decade-long imprisonment sentence, the same prisoner who, according to a recent testimony released from inside the prison by Narges Muhammadi, the renowned human rights activist, has been witnessed in the same prison with clear bruises caused by physical torture while under interrogation’ This, above all, suggests that “popularity” is a major trigger-factor in state’s security reactions. Since the establishment of the Islamic government in Iran and its octopoid expansion in the region, one of the stimulating, inciting elements and perhaps one can say the red line of the regime, if not officially and legally, but in practice, has been “individual popularity.” Totalitarian and semi-totalitarian systems, as they want and know everything to be exclusively in the realm of their absolute power, by creating the illusion of popularity and promoting it to the sanctity of the existing ideology and the person at the top of the power pyramid, have monopolized this category and prevented its leakage to the society and suppress it in the bud with whatever means at their disposal. The reason is that they know that the popularity of any person or group brings them attention and shifts the focus away from the top of the pyramid, reduces and multiplies the attention, and gradually fades the aura of sanctity around the person at the head, and hence causes the system to become obscure. Therefore, in addition to many people such as writers, poets, filmmakers, journalists, etc., who cannot be tolerated by the government due to the effect of their work and deserve to be suffocated and removed from society – by various means such as murder, imprisonment, exile, or solitary confinement – many people, from singers to chefs, businessmen, philanthropists, and influencers… are always under surveillance and monitoring just because of their popularity and fame among people. And only if they stop praising the system, they will be punished by the system. So basically, anything that takes the attention and focus of “the servants” away from the power and to the direction outside the domain of “the master” will be excommunicated, arrested, humiliated, punished, and obliterated. Just as the government strongly opposes the establishment and growth of any teams, groups, unions and organizations because it is afraid of their growth and evolution, gaining power and becoming popular. There are many examples, including the harsh suppression and forced shutdown of the benevolent and active “Imam Ali Society” (an operationally unmatched NGO in the areas of social work and humanitarian activism whose forced shutdown resulted in thousands of ill-guarded children and orphans). Popularity in some areas such as music is an entirely separate question because the Islamic government is inherently and essentially against music and if musicians in this country continue to work it is only because of the government’s “mercy.” This essential opposition doubles the importance of the issue. A popular singer or musician carries a double burden of guilt and is irritates the government doubly. In this context, Khabat Fadaei, as a popular Kurdish singer, should be punished as soon as he opens his mouth to protest, because the fear of his influence on his fans is like a ghost constantly present and watching over the stage, and this fear should cut off the language of influence at its source.
