DEMONSTRATION FOR MASHA AMINI AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN IRAN, DEMONSTRATORS, PROTEST, WOMEN’S LIFE FREEDOM
In May 2024 he had responded with a point to a tweet from Ali Khamenei. It was dangerous to expose oneself and so it was. A few weeks later, it was arrested and last week for the Iranian blogger and activist Hossein
Shanbehzadeh one has arrived condemnation to twelve years in prison.
His comment had received more likes on X than the post of the Iranian Supreme Leader, attracting the attention of users (and not only). The news was reported by Iran Internationala Persian-language news television channel based in London, and denounced by IranHumanRights.org. As the blogger’s lawyer, Amir Raisian, explained, the Tehran court sentenced him to five years For “pro-Israel propaganda activities“, to four years “for insult to the sacred“, two years For “spreading falsehoods” on social media and one year For “anti-regime propaganda activities“. Although sentenced to a total of twelve years, the lawyer explained that he will have to serve the longest sentence, that is five years.
This is today’s Iran, Ali Khamenei’s Iran, Shiite Iran, Iran where freedom of any kind does not exist. And all in the name of Islam.
During the uprising of the movement Woman Life Freedom 2022Iranian security forces used the rape and other forms of sexual violence to intimidate and punish who had demonstrated peacefully.
Amnesty International’s report tells the story heartbreaking experiences of 45 survivors (26 men, 12 women and seven minors), subjected to rape, gang rape and/or other forms of sexual violence by intelligence and security forces agents, following their arrest. To date, Iranian authorities have not charged or prosecuted any officials for the cases of sexual violence and rape documented in the report.
“Iran’s intelligence services and security forces have used rape and other forms of sexual violence to torture, punish and inflict severe physical and psychological harm on people who took to the streets to demonstrate, even just 12 years oldThe dramatic testimonies we have collected represent only a part of the repressive system
implemented by the Iranian authorities, who use sexual violence to suppress protests and dissent and to cling to power at all costs. Iranian magistrates and judges have been complicit in this system not only by ignoring or covering up reports of rape, but also by using tortured confessions to make false accusations against survivors, and then sentencing them to death or prison. Survivors have been left without any recourse or compensation; for them, only institutionalized impunitysilence and multiple physical and psychological scars that have left deep marks” said Agnés Callamard. Agnès Callamard is a French activist, civil servant and diplomat, human rights expert and Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council.
THE responsible of rape and other forms of sexual violence include agents of the Revolutionary Guards, the paramilitary Basij militia and the secret servicesas well as various sections of the police force including the Public Security Police, the Police Investigation Unit and the Police Special Forces. The victims include women and girls who refused to wear the veil and men and boys who took to the streets to express their outrage at decades of gender discrimination and oppression.
The extent of sexual violence that occurred during the Donna Vita Libertà protests is difficult to estimate, as stigma and fear of consequences usually lead to people not reporting. However, Amnesty International has documented in detail 45 cases in more than half of Iran’s provinceswhich add to the accounts of other survivors and former detainees of further cases of rape and other sexual violence against dozens of protesters in prison. This confirms that the documented violence is part of a larger system.
On 24 November 2023, Amnesty International sent the findings of its research to the Iranian authorities but has not received any response to date. Sixteen of the 45 cases documented in the report are rape cases and involve six women, seven men, a 14-year-old girl and two boys aged 16 and 17.
Iranian agents raped women and girls in various ways, men and boys were also raped. Survivors were raped with wooden and metal batons, glass bottles, pipes and … by the agents themselves. The rapes occurred in detention centers, inside police vans, as well as in schools and residential buildings, illegally used as places of detention.
Farzad, who was gang-raped in a vehicle belonging to the Special Police Forces, told Amnesty International:“The plainclothes officers stood us in front of the vehicle and gave us electric shocks to our legs… they tortured me by beating me… breaking my nose and teeth. They pulled down my pants and raped me… they really tore me to pieces… I was vomiting a lot and bleeding from the…”.
Maryam, who was gang-raped in a Revolutionary Guard detention centre, told Amnesty International that one of her rapists told her:“You’re all addicted to penis, so we made you have fun. Isn’t that what you want from freedom?”
Amnesty International has further 29 cases of other forms of sexual violence documentedother than rape. These cases have regularly involved state agents grabbing, groping, and kicking victims’ breasts, genitals, and buttocks; forcing victims to undress, sometimes filming the act; using electric shocks, needles, and ice against men’s organs; cutting and/or pulling women’s hair; and threatening to rape them or their relatives.
Rape and other forms of violence have been often accompanied by torture and ill-treatmentsuch as beatings, whippings, electric shocks, administration of unidentified pills or injections, denial of food and water, and cruel and inhuman conditions of detention. Security forces have also repeatedly denied medical care to victimsincluding those for injuries caused by rape.
The vast majority majority of victims told Amnesty International that not having filed a complaint after being released from prisonfearing further consequences and believing that the
judiciary was an instrument of repression rather than reparation. Six survivors showed signs of torture and reported the abuse to the prosecutor’s office while still in detention to ask for questioning, but they were ignored.
Six other survivors showed signs of torture or complained of violence when they were brought before prosecutors for questioning, but were also ignored. Three of the survivors said they filed complaints after their release, but two were forced to withdraw them after security forces threatened to kill or hold their family members hostage. The third was ignored for months until an official told her she had “mistaken” a search for sexual assault.
Amnesty International has reviewed a confidential document, dated 13 October 2022 and published by a media outlet outside Iran in February 2023, which alleges that authorities have covered up rape complaints filed by two young protesters against two Revolutionary Guard officers. In the document, Tehran’s deputy prosecutor recommends classifying the case as “completely secret” and suggests “closing (the case) gradually over time”.
The survivors still continue to living with physical and psychological trauma caused by rape and other forms of sexual violence. The mother of a school-age boy said that her son attempted suicide twice in prison.
One protester, Sahar, described the traumatic impact of sexual violence when officers stripped her of all her clothes except her underwear and touched her breasts and genitals while simulating rape and threatening to rape her: “I used to be a fighter. Even when the Islamic Republic tried to destroy me, I kept going. But recently I often think about suicide. I spend the whole day waiting for night to come so I can fall asleep.”
Zahra, raped by a Special Forces police officer, described the psychological consequences that do not go away:“I don’t think I’ll ever be the person I was before. I can’t find anything that brings me back to how I was before, that gives me back my soul. I hope that my testimony will promote justice, not just for me.”
“Without political will and profound legislative and constitutional reforms, structural barriers will continue to plague the Iranian judicial system, which has long shown its shameful inability and unwillingness to effectively investigate crimes under international law,” commented Agnés Callamard..
“In the absence of a national judicial channel, the international community has a duty to stand with survivors and pursue justice. It is necessary support the expansion of the mandate of the UN Fact-Finding Commission on Iranto ensure that an independent mechanism continues to collect, preserve and analyse evidence of crimes under international law and other serious human rights violations. We urge States to initiate investigations in their countries, through the principle of universal jurisdiction., against alleged perpetrators of international crimes with the aim of issuing international arrest warrants,” Callamard concluded.
Carlo Franza