Zeinab Babaie, a Kurdish novelist and civil activist, was forced to leave Iran and seek asylum in Europe after receiving threats from the regime’s security entities.
Babaie is a writer and a former head of the Mahabad Literature Institute. She was arrested on August 16, 2014 on charges of “promoting Christianity” and “propaganda against the state” by the Mahabad prosecutor’s office. She was condemned to two years prison. She was transferred to Mahabad Central Prison to serve her time behind bars.
Babaie spent 7 months in Mahabad Central Prison and 4 months in a women’s prison center. She was released on the condition of never resuming her activities. The civil activist was continuously followed, threatened and harassed by the Mahabad intelligence department after her release and banned from leaving the country.
