Experts Discuss the Government Committee Investigating the Nationwide Protests of 2022

A government committee established to gather legal information on the widespread protests of last year, known as the "Review of the Unrest of 2022," published a report on Thursday, December 2, nine months after its activities began. Experts and analysts have deemed the report lacking in information and limited to introducing internal guidelines. According to Ali Afshari, a political analyst based in Washington, the content of the report is "mostly a description of duties, mechanisms, organizations, and sub-groups." Regarding a section of the report described as provincial trips to console the families of the deceased and injured, he told Voice of America: "It is unclear whether the deceased refers to opponents and protesters or affiliated forces such as Basij or military personnel." He added that while the government claims its forces were killed, it "exaggerates in this regard." Afshari commented on another part of the report concerning research aimed at deterring public protests and expanding legal spaces for public gatherings, stating that "this was exactly done during the protests of 1996 and 1998 and yielded no results," emphasizing that the main philosophy of such committees is to contain and prevent threats and that "the regime seeks to save itself." Meanwhile, a lawyer who wished to remain anonymous commented on the legal members of this committee, Zahra Elhian, head of the Human Rights Committee of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, and Hassan Safadoust, head of the Bar Association, stating that the legal members of this committee are "non-independent and governmental." This lawyer, who has represented several detained protesters, remarked on the legal questionnaire on the committee's website for gathering public evidence, saying: "This type of security approach to collecting complaints is a form of interrogation or informant reporting from protesting people and is not trustworthy to the public." He added, "It seems they have asked people to confess against themselves." Mahnaz Ghazalloo, a human rights activist residing in Sweden, commented on the legitimacy of this committee's legal documents and reports in international forums, stating that the formation of this committee, like other so-called legal institutions of the government, is "merely justification and case-making to cover up the war crimes of the Islamic Republic in 2022." She pointed out that the Islamic Republic has never allowed impartial members of the UN fact-finding committee to investigate the number of deaths, executions, and reports of sexual assaults on protesting women, saying: "How can a government that is itself a murderer and has blood on its hands from crimes against humanity conduct an impartial investigation?" Following the violent suppression of widespread protests that began after the death of Mahsa Amini in the morality police in September of last year, many human rights activists called for the establishment of a fact-finding committee regarding the actions of the Islamic Republic. Subsequently, at the thirty-fifth special session of the UN Human Rights Council held last December, member countries voted, resulting in the adoption of a resolution to establish a fact-finding committee for Iran with 25 votes in favor, six against, and 16 abstentions. The council president announced that a group of three female experts was appointed to lead the work of the independent international fact-finding committee on Iran. The Islamic Republic, accused of human rights violations, has stated that it will not cooperate with this committee.