Human rights groups and the family of Kurdish political activist Yasser Mangouri said he has died after being summoned by members of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry. Mangouri’s arrest occurred on July 17, but his death was officially conveyed to his family over 50 days later.

According to the Iranian Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the body has yet to be handed over to the family, which continues to be kept in the dark about the exact circumstances surrounding his death. Since Mangouri was summoned and held incommunicado by Iran’s intelligence forces, his family had repeatedly approached the authorities for news on his whereabouts, but to no avail.

Hengaw, another advocacy website that monitors developments in Iranian Kurdistan, quoted sources as saying that Mangouri had been “killed under torture.” According to a tally recorded by the same outlet, at least 23 Kurdish prisoners, including 15 political detainees, have been tortured to death in Iranian jails since 2017.

A welder by profession, Mangouri was the father of three and is said to have been previously investigated over his alleged links to opposition groups. The exact nature and affiliation of those groups has not been specified, but Iran’s Kurdish regions have for decades been treated with a securitized, zero-tolerance approach by the ruling Islamic Republic due to the anti-government activism by Kurdish movements and their sympathizers. Accused of pursuing separatist causes, most of those groups are currently based in northern Iraq, with many members also exiled across the Western world where they have also been subject to hunt-and-kill plots by Iran-linked agents.