The Islamic regime has orchestrated a brutal crackdown to quash dissent and conceal its human rights violations, according to a damning report published by Human Rights Watch on Tuesday.
As part of its campaign of suppression, Tehran has arrested people en masse, detaining individuals in unofficial facilities where they cannot communicate with the outside world, broadcast hundreds of confessions coerced from minors and adults, and forcibly disappeared thousands of civilians.
“As a whole nation remains in shock, horror, and grief – and families still search for their loved ones in the aftermath of the massacres of January 8 and 9, authorities continue to terrorize the population,” said Bahar Saba, senior Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch.
He added: “Arrests continue, and detainees face torture, coerced ‘confessions,’ and secret, summary, and arbitrary executions.”
“Given the immense dangers those detained and forcibly disappeared face, international monitors should immediately be given unhindered access to all detention facilities and prisons,” Saba demanded.
Speaking with 23 people inside Iran and abroad, including families of those killed or disappeared, lawyers, medical professionals, and prisoners, the report focuses on violations in the provinces of Alborz, Eastern Azerbaijan, Fars, Golestan, Hormozgan, Ilam, Kermanshah, Kouzestan, Kurdistan, Lorestan, Mazandaran, Razavi Khorasan, and Tehran.
Forces televised confessions
HRW was able to obtain footage of security forces violently arresting protesters, as well as to analyze 139 forced confessions broadcast by the state media site Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).
The human rights NGO stated that the forced televised confessions violated the absolute prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment, the right to presumption of innocence, and the right to a fair trial.
In at least two videos reviewed by HRW, state media broadcast the forced confessions of two 16-year-old girls who were made to say they received foreign support to protest.
Saleh Mohammadi, a 19-year-old wrestling champion sentenced to death by a court in Qom in a trial lasting less than a month, is said to have been one of the many forced to confess under torture.
The regime’s authorities allege that the teenager was involved in the death of a member of the security forces, and he is set to be publicly executed despite a lack of material evidence.
The Islamic regime initially appeared to take an understanding tone when demonstrations broke out in December in response to the country’s economic crisis, but switched strategies to one of violent suppression only days later.
On January 8, Tehran blocked Internet access and severely disrupted landline connections, making it difficult for families to stay connected and for international organizations to monitor the reality on the ground.
“Systematic impunity has enabled Iranian authorities to repeatedly commit crimes under international law,” Saba said.
“Other countries’ judicial authorities should initiate criminal investigations of international crimes under the principle of universal jurisdiction – and in accordance with national laws, with a view to prosecuting those suspected of criminal responsibility,” he insisted.
The Islamic regime has acknowledged the deaths of 3,117 people, alleging they were killed by foreign-backed rioters. However, NGOs and human rights organizations have alleged the regime slaughtered thousands in the protests, and an Iranian doctor earlier told The Jerusalem Post that the regime’s security forces murdered protesters in their hospital beds as they were being treated for their wounds.
According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), at least 7,000 people were killed in the January crackdown, including 6,488 protesters and 236 children.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) acknowledged in January that at least 11,000 people had been summoned by intelligence and security forces and, according to the judiciary’s spokesperson, 10,538 individuals had been referred for prosecution, with 8,843 indictments issued by February 17.
One of those detained by the regime sent a recording to HRW, asking that international scrutiny continue. “Do not forget the detainees… Be our voice; if you do not raise your voice, they will eliminate us all,” he begged the organization.
Several sources confirmed to HRW that detainees were being held in isolation in unofficial facilities and wards emptied for their detention, in an apparent attempt to disrupt the flow of information.
The human rights organization stressed that those held in unofficial facilities run by security and intelligence bodies were at heightened risk of torture and executions that were arbitrary, summary, and secret.
One detainee in solitary confinement confirmed, “Everyone you see has been horribly tortured… All [confessions] are coerced, they [authorities] would write up what they want themselves or would dictate what to write… and if you did not accept to sign, they would hit you with a shocker [electric shock weapon] on the head. You are sitting there blindfolded, shackled, and in handcuffs, encircled by several men; you would accept anything.”
Further complicating investigations into the number of those killed, detained, or forcibly disappeared is the lack of material evidence provided to the families once they are informed of the killings of their loved ones.
Many families complained that no bodies were returned to them, and they received no information despite repeated inquiries.
Footage shared by BBC Persian and Iran International last month – while unverified – showed hundreds of bodies piled in black bags in makeshift facilities awaiting identification.
A teacher of two of the missing protesters, who haven’t been seen since January 8, said, “The family knows they were in the protests and has since been to all police stations, hospitals, and morgues, but there is no trace of them. They do not know if they are dead or alive.”
Sekhavat Salimi, a former political prisoner, made a video on February 1 announcing that he had been unable to locate the body of his son Mohammadi Ali Salimi, despite having received a call informing him of his death.
“For 10 to 15 days, I searched everywhere in Tehran and Karaj. I went to Kahrizak [morgue], and to Behest-e Zahra and Behesht-e Sakineh [cemeteries]. I searched for my son everywhere but did not find him or his body... There is no trace of him. I do not know what to do,” the distraught father said.
The Volunteer Committee to Follow-Up on the Situation of Detainees – a network of activists outside Iran – has published the names and details of over 2,800 people arrested, but the true scale remains unknown. Last week, Amnesty International was able to confirm the identity of 30 people, including minors, who are now facing execution.
Protesters interviewed by HRW said that prosecutors and prison officials have systematically denied the arrested protesters access to their lawyers and have refused to provide information about detainees’ fates and their whereabouts to their families.
Under Iran’s Article 48 of Iran’s Criminal Procedure Code, only lawyers approved by the head of the judiciary can be appointed to defend individuals charged with national security offenses.
The UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran confirmed that many of the judiciary-approved lawyers had previously been involved in human rights violations themselves, thus making their appropriateness deeply questionable.
Under the Note to Article 48 of Iran’s Criminal Procedure Code, individuals charged with certain offenses, including national security offenses, are denied the right to access an independent lawyer of their own choosing. Only lawyers approved by the head of the judiciary can be appointed to defend them.
“Detainees have no access to lawyers,” a lawyer told HRW.
“Families do not want to retain Article 48 lawyers. Independent lawyers who go to officials to take on protest detainees’ cases are told by the authorities, ‘Are you an Article 48 lawyer? No? Then leave, you cannot take the case.’”
The UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran and human rights organizations have documented a pattern of complicity by many judiciary-approved lawyers in grave human rights violations. As a result, detainees and their families have said they do not trust them.
One human rights defender, who spoke to the relatives of detainees in Ilam and Kermanshah, reported that officials responded with profanities and insults when contacted by families for information.
HRW was also able to verify footage of dozens of families waiting outside prisons, prosecutors’ offices, and police stations, hoping to gather some information about their loved ones’ fates.
The family of one detainee told the NGO, “When we ask officials at the prosecutor’s office [about our loved one], they tell us, ‘They are criminals, if they weren’t, we would not have arrested them,’ “When we ask what their crime is, they respond, ‘You yourselves know better.’”
Matching accounts given to the Post by a member of the Aida Healthcare Alliance, HRW said that it had documented cases of torture, both psychological and physical, as well as sexual violence and the withholding of medical treatment for detainees. Documentation revealed severe beatings with batons, along with food deprivation and the consistent threat of execution being used against detainees.
One woman who was detained in Razavi Khorasan said several agents violently arrested her while subjecting her to sexualized insults and profanities. “Suddenly, around five or six members of the security forces attacked me and started beating me on the back of my head and neck with batons and gunstock. I am a small-sized woman, and there were six of them, all men,” she told HRW.
“They handcuffed me from the back and made me lie on my stomach, face down. Then they took me to their vehicle while constantly swearing at me and put my face on the trunk of the car. When I objected to my arrest, telling them that I had not done anything, they hit me in the face with a shield, and I got a bloodied nose.”
An informed source also told HRW that a 16-year-old was severely tortured and was denied food for five days after he was arrested in his home. The source shared that security forces repeatedly beat him to the point of losing consciousness on multiple occasions, and relatives said that his face had been bruised when they visited him, allowed to see him only through a glass barrier.
Witnesses also complained to HRW that the regime had placed checkpoints across cities, setting new rules resembling curfews and martial law. People were regularly being subjected to stop and search operations by armed agents, they reported.