New Human Rights Watch Report: Suppression of Protests Accompanied by 'Sexual Assault'

Human Rights Watch has released a new report stating that the security forces of the Islamic Republic have engaged in 'torture' and 'sexual assault' against detainees during the suppression of widespread protests over the past two years. These severe abuses are part of a broader pattern of serious human rights violations aimed at suppressing dissent within the Islamic Republic system. According to investigations conducted by Human Rights Watch regarding 'abuse' of ten Kurdish, Baluch, and Turk prisoners from September to November 2022, detainees reported 'torture for the purpose of forced confessions' in seven instances. Nahid Nashtabandi, an Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch, commented on the findings of this report, stating: 'The brutality of security forces in Iran against detained protesters, including sexual assault and torture, is not only a gross crime but also a weapon of injustice against detainees used to coerce them into false confessions.' Human Rights Watch has documented its findings by interviewing five women, three men, and two children between September 2022 and 2023. In this context, a Kurdish woman told the organization that in November 2022, 'two men from the security forces assaulted her while a female officer held her down and facilitated the assault.' A 24-year-old Kurdish man from West Azerbaijan also confirmed that he was subjected to 'severe torture and assault with a baton' by intelligence forces in a secret detention center in September 2022. This young protester also stated that he was subjected to 'gang rape' by security forces in a van. Human Rights Watch also confirmed that a Baluch woman who 'witnessed the assault of at least two other women' in a detention center in Sistan and Baluchestan was beaten and sexually assaulted, causing them physical and psychological harm. The report cites a student from Sistan and Baluchestan University who reported that in October 2022, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps arrested her along with 20 other women and subjected them to 'torture and sexual violence' during a month of detention. This student described instances of sexual violence, including 'kicking in the genital area,' and stated that she was sexually assaulted three times during approximately 50 days of detention. The report also addresses sexual assaults against a Baluch woman, a 21-year-old Kurdish woman, as well as assaults by plainclothes agents of the Revolutionary Guards against a 30-year-old male protester in Tabriz and a 24-year-old male medical student in Oshnaviyeh. Sexual assault during suppression has become institutionalized within the Islamic Republic, as CNN reported in December 2022 that its investigations uncovered documents indicating that the Islamic Republic uses sexual assault as a tool for torturing detainees during nationwide protests. The report stated that 'Iranian security forces use sexual assault to suppress protests.' This report reflects four decades of sexual assault in the prisons and detention centers of the Islamic Republic, which other international bodies have repeatedly emphasized. Human Rights Watch has called on the UN's International Fact-Finding Mission to continue investigating these severe violations as part of its broader report on the systemic violation of human rights by the Iranian government. In this context, Human Rights Watch emphasized in a report in May 2023 on the status of detained children that Iranian security forces suppressing widespread protests have 'illegally' killed, tortured, sexually assaulted, and disappeared children. This human rights organization stated that Iranian officials have also detained children 'in violation of legal protections for children,' interrogated them, and prosecuted them, preventing family judges from employing their chosen lawyers for their defense, convicting children on vague charges, and trying them outside of juvenile courts, which 'have exclusive judicial authority in the realm of children.' On March 19, 2023, Javaid Rehman, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, stated at a Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva that the Islamic Republic may have committed 'crimes against humanity' in reference to killings, imprisonments, enforced disappearances, torture, harassment, and sexual assault against protesters by security forces. In March 2023, coinciding with the release of the annual human rights report by the US Department of State, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that the security forces of the Islamic Republic resorted to 'torture and gender-based violence' during the arbitrary detention of thousands of protesters. The human rights organization Amnesty International also reported in March 2023 that it had obtained documents showing that detained child protesters in Iran faced brutal repression and abuse, including electric shocks and sexual violence.