According to reports by human rights media, on Sunday, 4 Mordad, IRGC Intelligence forces shot Mehdi Torki, director of the Kurdistan House of Photographers and a former political prisoner, along with his sister, Sima Torki, and their mother, Maryam Aslani, in the Baneh–Marivan road in Iraqi Kurdistan, firing on them; all three were killed.

The bodies of the three citizens were buried on Monday, 5 Mordad, in the “Behesht Mohammadi” cemetery in Sanandaj under heavy security conditions. Hengaw, citing an informed source, reported that government institutions have put pressure on the Torki family to prevent the news from being publicized and to announce that they died in a traffic accident.

According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, security authorities summoned family members of these three Kurdish citizens and told them that they would hand over the bodies for burial only if they refrained from informing the media.

At the same time as security pressure on the victims’ families, government media and the spokesperson of FARAJA covered the news regarding the killing of this cultural activist and his family under the heading of clashes with armed individuals and members of a Kurdish party.