New information has revealed that in the days preceding her suicide, Nishtman Hossein Panahi had been repeatedly summoned to the Department of Intelligence in Sanandaj, capital of Kurdistan Province in western Iran, and subjected to psychological torture.
Nishtman Hossein Panahi committed suicide and died on May 1, 2018, apparently in protest to the scheduled execution of her uncle, Ramin Hossein Panahi. A handwritten note left from her, however, indicates that the reason for her suicide was the pressure imposed on her by the Department of Intelligence in Sanandaj.
The Department of Intelligence had pressured Nishtman, 25, to cooperate with them against her own family. They summoned her husband and pressured him to divorce Nishtman. But the couple refused to cooperate with the Department of Intelligence. Nishtman’s husband, Ahmad Hossein Panahi, is presently serving his five-year prison sentence.
The Department of Intelligence of Sanandaj also pressured the Hossein Panahi family to refrain from disseminating this information and hold Nishtman’s funeral in silence.