Amnesty International report on Iran's use of rape and torture against men, women and children as young as 12 should put Western appeasers to shame – Struan Stevenson
Amnesty International’s latest report on the conditions suffered by political prisoners and other detainees in Iran’s medieval jails should provide a wake-up call for Western politicians keen to appease the theocratic regime. Amnesty says that prisoners detained following the nationwide uprising in 2022 have been subjected to rape and sexual assault, aimed at intimidating protesters and opponents of the regime.
The report documents – “in harrowing detail” – the ordeals experienced by 45 survivors of the countrywide protests, including 26 men, 12 women and seven children, who were subjected to rape, gang rape and other forms of sexual violence. It identifies those responsible for the rape and sexual violence as members of the paramilitary Basij, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the ministry of intelligence and security forces (MOIS), and various branches of the police, including the Public Security Police (police amniat-e omoumi), the investigation unit of Iran’s police (agahi), and the police special forces (yegan-e vijeh).
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Hide AdIn a horrifying section, Amnesty says: “State agents raped women and girls vaginally, anally and orally, while men and boys were raped anally. Survivors were raped with wooden and metal batons, glass bottles, hosepipes, and/or agents’ sexual organs and fingers. Rape took place in detention facilities and police vans, as well as schools or residential buildings unlawfully repurposed as detention places.”
According to the witness statements, the rape and sexual violence suffered by the prisoners were often accompanied by other forms of torture and cruelty, including floggings, beatings, electric shocks, the administration of unnamed pills and injections, denial of food and water, and degrading and inhuman detention conditions. Medical care for victims of torture and for rape-related injuries was routinely denied.
Most of the survivors told Amnesty that they had decided against filing official complaints about their treatment, as they feared it would lead to further brutal attacks and, in any case, they regard the Iranian judiciary as a tool of repression rather than an instrument of justice.
The report also highlighted a leaked official document dated October 13, 2022, which revealed a cover-up by the Iranian authorities of a complaint of rape against two IRGC agents, made by two young women arrested during the recent popular uprising. According to Amnesty, the document, from the deputy prosecutor of Tehran, advised that the case be classified as “completely secret” and suggested it should be gradually allowed to “close over time”.
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Hide AdAmnesty International’s Secretary-General Agnés Callamard concluded: “Our research exposes how intelligence and security agents in Iran used rape and other sexual violence to torture, punish and inflict lasting physical and psychological damage on protesters, including children as young as 12. The harrowing testimonies we collected point to a wider pattern in the use of sexual violence as a key weapon in the Iranian authorities’ armoury of repression of the protests and suppression of dissent to cling to power at all costs.
“Without political will and fundamental constitutional and legal reforms, structural barriers will continue to plague Iran’s justice system, which has, time and again, exposed its shameful inability and unwillingness to effectively investigate crimes under international law. We urge states to initiate criminal investigations in their own countries against suspected perpetrators under the principle of universal jurisdiction, with a view to issuing international arrest warrants.”
The Amnesty report comes as a wave of hangings continues in Iran’s prisons, aimed at controlling the restive population and preventing a further uprising. Since seizing power in the 1979 Islamic revolution, the mullahs’ regime has maintained its authority through killings and torture. While the regime continues to fan the flames of war in the Middle East, its main goal is to maintain its hold on power at home.
This is why, in tandem with its warmongering policies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Gaza, it has resorted to increasing its repressive measures at home. According to official reports by the regime’s judiciary, in the past ten days alone, the regime has carried out 37 executions, including several prisoners of conscience and protesters arrested during the nationwide uprising.
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Hide AdAs Amnesty has shown, those executed are routinely brutally tortured into making false confessions and have included women and prisoners who were underage when they were arrested. Dozens of prisoners on death row are currently being transferred to solitary cells to await execution.
As the clerical regime enters its final phase, it is high time for the world to take concrete measures to hold it accountable for its egregious human rights violations. Iranians must be allowed to exercise their fundamental human rights without fear of reprisal. The bloodthirsty mullahs think that, by waging war in the region and killing youths inside Iran, it can delay or stop the next wave of uprisings.
But these crimes will only increase the people’s determination to overthrow this evil dictatorship. The United Nations, the US, the EU and the UK must strongly condemn this regime for its use of brutal torture, sexual violence and arbitrary executions and take urgent action to save the prisoners on death row, especially political prisoners. The mullahs do not represent the people of Iran and should be expelled from the United Nations.
Struan Stevenson, a former member of the European Parliament, is the coordinator of the Campaign for Iran Change and chair of the In Search of Justice committee on the protection of political freedoms in Iran. His latest book is entitled Dictatorship and Revolution. Iran – A Contemporary History.
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