The report said that these crimes included persecution on the basis of gender – a crime against humanity – which intersected with discrimination on the basis of race and religion.
Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, was arrested in Tehran on September 13, 2022, for allegedly wearing an “inappropriate” hijab, a reference to Iran’s strict Islamic dress code on women. Days after her death, she sparked massive protests under the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom,” which quickly expanded to include broader expressions of dissent against the Iranian authorities and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani, in a statement published Saturday on the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s website, rejected what he described as “the baseless allegations contained in this report and based on false and biased information.” The mission said it “regrets the lack of meaningful cooperation on the part of the Iranian authorities” in the investigation.
The report, prepared for the UN Human Rights Council, rejected previous claims by Iranian authorities that Amini died of a childhood medical condition.
“Based on the evidence, alleged complications resulting from surgery performed on Ms. Amini in childhood can be excluded as the direct cause of her death,” the report said, adding that “the mission has reasonable grounds to believe that her death was due to external causes.” “.
The report said that the mission “established evidence that Ms. Amini’s body was subjected to trauma while in the custody of the morality police” and “is convinced that Ms. Amini was subjected to physical violence that led to her death.” . “On this basis, the state bears responsibility for her unlawful death.”
Instead of investigating the circumstances of her death, authorities took “active steps to suppress the truth” and used judicial harassment and intimidation to silence her family members and prevent them from seeking legal action, according to the report. She added that the family's lawyer, as well as several journalists who first reported Amini's death, were later arrested and imprisoned.
The report stated that the fact-finding mission used official Iranian statements and reports, in-depth interviews with victims and eyewitnesses, medical photographs, verified photographs, video images and satellite images.
The Washington Post did not independently review the source materials used by the mission.
Iran did not issue comprehensive statistics about the protests, but the report said that a “reliable figure” for the number of deaths during the protests reached 551 people, including up to 49 women and 68 children, while tens of thousands of others are believed to have been killed. He was arrested.
The mission said: “The mission acknowledges the killing and wounding of security forces and found cases of violence by demonstrators,” noting that the Iranian government portrayed the demonstrators as troublemakers, but “the vast majority of the protests were peaceful.”
The report said that the largest number of deaths was recorded in areas with minorities, including Sistan and Baluchestan province, where 104 people were killed in one day on September 30, 2022, during the protests that broke out after Friday prayers.
The report also found that Iranian security forces carried out unlawful and extrajudicial killings in a “pattern of use of lethal force by security forces against demonstrators.”
She added that most of the deaths were caused by firearms. Some demonstrators and bystanders were completely or partially blinded by security forces. The mission concluded that it was “satisfied” that the injuries, which “permanently affected the victims, ‘characterizing’ them as demonstrators,” were intended to act as a deterrent to others.
The report said detainees, including children, were also subjected to “severe physical, psychological and sexual torture,” including beatings, burning, use of electric shocks, and rape. She added that she found several cases in which individuals died in detention as a result of torture.
The report said that judges presiding over cases involving protesters relied on confessions obtained under torture and “demonstrated clear bias.” It added that nine protesters were executed, while at least 6 other men remained under death sentence, some of whom were at risk of imminent execution at the time of writing.
“We urge the Iranian authorities to stop all executions, immediately and unconditionally release all people arbitrarily arrested and detained in the context of the protests, and end executions,” Shaheen Sardar Ali, a member of the fact-finding mission, said in a statement. Suppression of demonstrators, their families, and supporters of the Women, Life and Freedom movement.”
Abram Paley, Deputy US Special Envoy for Iran, books On social media, “the whole world is taking notice” of the report, adding: “It is essential that the fact-finding mission continues its important work.”
