Amnesty International: The People of Iran Continue to Suffer Under Repression While Perpetrators Are Immune from Punishment

Amnesty International, on the eve of the second anniversary of the death of Mahsa Zhina Amini in the custody of the morality police, which led to nationwide protests, announced that the people of Iran continue to endure the devastating consequences of the "brutal repression" of those protests. In a statement released on September 12, it noted that at that time, people across Iran protested against "decades of oppression and gender discrimination," emphasizing that those involved in repressing the people benefit from "systematic impunity." Diana Tahawi, Deputy Regional Director of Amnesty International for the Middle East and North Africa, stated in this statement that the anniversary of the "Women, Life, Freedom" protests serves as a "harrowing reminder that countless individuals in Iran still suffer from the consequences of the brutal repression by the authorities." According to Ms. Tahawi, "Victims, survivors, and their relatives continue to be deprived of truth, justice, and reparations for crimes under international law and other gross human rights violations by Iranian authorities during and after the uprising." She added that "Iranian officials have spent the past two years conducting a campaign of denial and distortion to hide evidence of their crimes and to silence survivors and the families of victims." Given the lack of prospects for independent and impartial investigations within Iran, "it is essential for countries to initiate criminal investigations into the crimes committed by Iranian officials through their domestic prosecutorial offices under the principle of universal jurisdiction." Despite nearly two years passing since Mahsa Zhina Amini's death in the custody of the morality police and the killing of many protesters, most of whom were very young, no effective, impartial, and independent criminal investigations have been conducted regarding serious human rights violations and crimes under international law by Iranian officials during and after the aforementioned protests, including the widespread and unlawful use of force and firearms by security forces. According to Amnesty International's statement, the security forces of the Islamic Republic fired live ammunition, metal pellet-filled shotguns, and tear gas at protesters and severely beat them with batons, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of protesters and bystanders, including dozens of children, and causing irreparable harm to many others. Following this, Islamic Republic officials have sought to silence the relatives of the deceased, who are seeking truth and justice for the unlawful killings of their loved ones, through arbitrary detentions, unjust prosecutions, death threats, and other relentless harassment. Amnesty International added that two years after these protests, Islamic Republic officials have "intensified their assault on human rights and launched a 'war on women and girls' with harsher repression of those challenging the strict hijab laws, and have escalated the use of the death penalty to silence dissenters." The intensification of the "war on women" has seen Iranian officials launch a new nationwide campaign called "Noor Plan" as part of their ongoing efforts to suppress the powerful women's rights movement against mandatory hijab, which intensified after Mahsa Zhina Amini's death in custody. Since then, there has been a significant increase in foot, motorcycle, car, and police van patrols in public spaces to enforce mandatory hijab. Zahra Rahnavard has described the violent enforcement of mandatory hijab as a "dictatorial order." This repression also includes dangerous car chases to stop women drivers on the roads, widespread confiscation of their vehicles, imprisonment, and also flogging and other punishments that lead to torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. Amnesty International's statement referenced the shooting at the vehicle carrying Arzu Badri, a 31-year-old woman over hijab, as well as the violent confrontation of several agents with two 14-year-old schoolgirls, one of whom, Nafas Hajisharif, described the violence used by the agents in an interview with the media. Amnesty International emphasized that the "full-scale attack" on women and girls demanding their human rights for freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, religion, belief, and independence is carried out by various state entities of the Islamic Republic. According to this statement, the enforcers of the humiliating and discriminatory hijab laws in Iran include the morality police (Gasht-e Ershad), traffic police, prosecutors' offices, courts, the Ministry of Intelligence, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including its Basij forces, and plainclothes agents. Meanwhile, the Iranian parliament is in the process of passing a "Bill to Support the Culture of Chastity and Hijab," aimed at legalizing the severe attacks by officials against women and girls who defy mandatory hijab. Amnesty International states that since the nationwide protests of "Women, Life, Freedom," Iranian officials have doubled their use of the death penalty, making 2023 the year with the highest number of executions in the past eight years. Islamic Republic officials have resorted to using the death penalty as a tool for repression and instilling fear among the people, including the ethnic minority Baluch, who have been disproportionately affected by executions. Since December 2022, officials have arbitrarily executed ten men in connection with the protests from September to December 2022, including Reza Rasayi, who was secretly executed on August 6 of this year. According to Amnesty International's investigations, these executions were carried out following "sham and unfair trials" that relied on "confessions" obtained under torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual violence, which were not independently and impartially examined. In addition to those executed, dozens of others, including Mojahid Korkor, are at risk of execution or being sentenced to death in connection with these protests. The organization has stated that the Islamic Republic is also applying these sentences against women who are imprisoned on political charges. The statement from Amnesty International mentions the names of Sharifeh Mohammadi, a human rights defender, and Pakhshan Azizi, a civil society activist from Kurdistan, as well as Varisheh Moradi and Nasim Gholami Samiari, who have been tried in separate cases on charges of "Baghi," which is armed action against the state. Over the past two years, Iranian officials have continued to deny that authorities have tortured and otherwise mistreated individuals detained during the protests, including rape and other forms of sexual violence. Meanwhile, according to Amnesty International's investigations, during the protests, Iranian security and intelligence forces widely tortured and otherwise mistreated detained protesters. In December 2023, Amnesty International documented the use of rape, including gang rape and other forms of sexual violence by security agents attempting to suppress protests and instill fear and punish protesters, including 12-year-old children. In March 2024, the Iranian High Council for Human Rights, which is not an independent body and is under the judiciary's supervision, responded to Amnesty International's investigations. This council stated that the Iranian judiciary has reviewed complaints in this regard and "in 28 provinces out of 31, no complaints have been registered under the titles of rape, assault, and sexual harassment." However, Amnesty International has continuously documented that prosecutorial and judicial authorities have ignored or concealed evidence of sexual violence, including complaints from survivors. In the three provinces where officials claimed to have received complaints about sexual violence by intelligence and security forces, they alleged that these individuals had impersonated police officers. However, a leaked official document in October 2022 from the Deputy Prosecutor of Tehran revealed that two of the accused rapists of the protesters were members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and it was recommended that this case be classified as "completely confidential." Amnesty International states that Iranian officials suspected of criminal actions in the field of human rights violations continue to evade justice. The statement noted that in March 2024, the "Special Committee for Investigating the Unrest of 2022," a non-judicial and biased committee created by Ebrahim Raisi to facilitate a "campaign of official denial, distortion, and cover-up," published its report. This committee claimed that security forces acted "responsibly" in response to protests despite documented evidence of their continued use of unlawful and lethal force. In April 2024, the UN Human Rights Council extended the mandate of the UN fact-finding mission in Iran, but the Islamic Republic continues to refuse to cooperate with this independent body and prevents its members from accessing the country. Amnesty International reiterates the recommendations of this council to all countries to initiate criminal investigations into Iranian officials who are reasonably suspected of committing crimes under international law, regardless of whether the accused is present in their territory or not, and to begin "structural investigations into the overall situation related to the 2022 protests without identified suspects."