(Geneva) Iran is still cracking down on those suspected of involvement in the protest for Iranian women’s rights that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in September, a UN fact-finding mission said Thursday.
An unprecedented protest, severely repressed, erupted in Iran after the death in custody on September 16, 2022 of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, three days after her arrest by the morality police who accused her of having violated the strict dress code imposing on women, in particular the wearing of the veil in the Islamic Republic.
The 47 members of the UN Human Rights Council voted on November 24 to set up an international investigation.
She was entrusted in December to three women: Sara Hosssain, a lawyer with the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, Shaheen Sardar Ali, a Pakistani professor of law at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, and the Argentine Viviana Krsticevic, director from the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL).
Mme Hossain, who chaired the mission, told the Council that ten months later, the Amini family’s right “to truth and justice remains a dead letter”.
“The lack of transparency surrounding the investigations into his death is also evidenced by the continued detention of the two female journalists, Niluufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, who were the first to report on the event,” she added.
Iran announced that 22,000 people had been pardoned in connection with the protests, which “suggests that many more are imprisoned or charged”, according to Ms.me Hosain.
No official data is available on the nature of the charges or on any convictions, detentions or charges relating to the protests, she added.
Mme Hossain explained that, according to press reports, the pardoned protesters were forced to express their remorse and “effectively admit their guilt” by signing written undertakings not to commit “similar crimes” in the future.
“Heavy penalties continue to be meted out to those involved in protests, including for exercising rights protected under international human rights law,” she said.
“More chillingly, seven men have already been executed after hasty proceedings marred by serious allegations of breaches of fair trial, including confessions obtained under torture. »
The fact-finding mission called on Tehran to stop executions of people sentenced to death because of the protests and release all those arrested for peacefully gathering and spreading information about the protests.
Mme Hossain asked Tehran to cooperate with the investigation.
Iran blames the West
Iran reacted by saying that Western countries had fomented the protests and that “terrorists entered the scene”.
“More than 75 policemen and civilians were killed by the rioters, and more than 7,000 law enforcement personnel were injured,” said Kazem Gharib Abadi, secretary general of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights.
“Iran’s policy in the face of the riots has been to use the minimum legal powers”, he insisted, while calling the establishment of the UN investigation “politically motivated and unacceptable”. .
He claimed that one social media channel ‘broadcast bomb-making training’ and another ‘created over 50,000 fake accounts in Persian to act against Iran’, while foreign TV channels “anti-Iranians” promoted “notorious terrorists in interviews”.
He also pointed to the recent riots against police violence in France, which he said “reflect excessive use of force against peaceful protesters, widespread arbitrary arrests and restrictions on the internet and social media. “.
“It would be prudent for the Human Rights Council to convene a special session to examine the situation in France,” he said.