Fateme Asadi
Fateme Asadi was an Iranian Kurdish woman who was, according to the Iranian media, tortured and killed by the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan. The PDKI denied responsibility and accused the Iranian government of fabricating the report. The PDKI had detained her husband, prompting Asadi to travel to them to obtain his release. She disappeared and her remains were found 37 years later in 2021, identified by a DNA test, and buried in the Chehel Cheshmeh mountains in Divandarreh district. She was labelled a martyr by Iranian media.
Early life and death
Fateme Asadi was born in 1960 in Bagherabad, a village in Divandarreh, Kurdistan Province, Iran. Asadi's husband dug wells for the village of Hosseinabad in Sanandaj at the request of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan accused him of being an IRGC spy. He was held on this pretext and transported by the militia to the Dowlatou prison. The militants asked for 200,000 tomans, which Fateme Asadi collected by selling her belongings. The KDPI militants detained her while she was handing over the money, and they harassed and tortured her for a month before shooting her to death.Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran rejected these claims and called them false.
Fateme Asadi's remains were found on 7 November 2021 during explorations in the Chehel Cheshmeh mountains in Divandarreh. DNA analysis was used to determine her identity, the first such use to identify victims of terror in Iran.