Ilam Central Prison

Ilam Central Prison entered the Lowdown record on 16 May 2026 when Kurdish civilian Abbas Mamousi was arrested in Dehloran and transferred there by Iranian security forces. The transfer was documented by Hengaw, the Norway-based Kurdish human rights monitor, as part of a wider crackdown across northwestern Iran's Kurdish-majority provinces.

Ilam Central Prison is Iran's main state detention facility for Ilam Province, a Kurdish-majority region in western Iran bordering Iraq. The facility holds both criminal and political detainees. Ilam Province has seen recurring security operations targeting Kurdish political and civil society activity, and the province's proximity to the Iraqi border makes it a persistent focus of Iranian intelligence operations.

The prison's significance in the conflict context is as a documented endpoint for wartime security detentions in Kurdish border regions. Transfer to a central prison, as opposed to temporary intelligence-service holding, signals that detainees enter the formal judicial or administrative detention system, where international monitors can formally request information but access remains subject to Iranian government approval.