2023-12-06 02:02:03
In a report published Wednesday, Amnesty International identifies around forty cases of rape and sexual violence documented against Iranian detainees arrested during the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising following the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022.
“My friends and I took off our veils in public and we were singing. I never thought the security forces would arrest us for that,” said Maryam, an Iranian protester whose testimony Amnesty International received from Iran.
The young woman claims to have been thrown into a van by the Revolutionary Guards and then locked up for two months in a detention center of the paramilitary group, where she was tortured. “Two officers raped me – including anally with a bottle. Even animals don’t do this kind of thing. I was very small compared to them. After that, I lost consciousness,” confides -she to the human rights organization.
Maryam’s story is one of forty-five testimonies collected between January and August 2023 by Amnesty International and transcribed in a report published Wednesday December 6. The NGO spoke with these former Iranian prisoners, “arbitrarily detained” between September and December 2022, or with their lawyers and their families, and had access to photographic evidence and medical files.
Among these forty chilling testimonies are the stories of 26 men who were victims of sexual abuse, but also of seven minors, including 12-year-old children.
Amnesty International denounces “the use of rape and other forms of sexual violence by Iranian security forces amounting to torture and other forms of ill-treatment” to intimidate, punish and humiliate protesters of the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising of 2022. The NGO, which has been monitoring human rights violations in Iran for years, noted an “alarming increase” in the use of rape and sexual violence in detention compared to to previous waves of protests.
Also read: Repression in Iran: “They took off my clothes and they cut my hair”
These tortures, the report states, are intended to “instill fear and inflict lasting trauma” in order to dissuade them from participating in future protests or other acts of resistance, such as exposing themselves in public in the case of women and girls.
After their time in detention, most victims suffer physical and psychological trauma linked to rape and these other forms of violence. For some, this manifests itself in suicide attempts. The mother of a raped high school student told Amnesty International that her son had tried to end his life twice while in detention.
No legal proceedings
According to the report, the rapes and sexual violence took place “in detention centers and police vans, as well as schools or residential buildings illegally used as places of detention.”
The perpetrators of these acts of torture were identified by their victims as members of the Revolutionary Guards, the Bassij paramilitary force and the Ministry of Intelligence, as well as agents of various branches of the police force. “To date, Iranian authorities have not charged or prosecuted any state officials for the rapes and other sexual violence documented in the report,” Amnesty International said.
Only three of the victims dared to initiate legal proceedings, but two of them withdrew their complaints after being threatened. “The third person was ignored for several months and was told by a senior official that she had ‘conflated’ a body search with sexual violence”, reports the NGO, whose general secretary Agnès Callamard denounces the complicity of Iranian justice.
“Prison rape has existed since the beginnings of the Islamic Republic,” explains Azadeh Kian, a specialist on Iran, who does not say she is surprised by Amnesty International’s revelations. In the 1980s, young women arrested for crimes were raped before their execution. Their executioners thought that if they were virgins, they would go to heaven, which they should not have been entitled to. A temporary marriage [pratique autorisée dans l’islam chiite et appelée “sigheh” en Iran, NDLR] was organized and a dowry in the form of sweets sent to the girl’s family.”
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Asked on December 7, 1986 about the massive use of rape in prisons, the Supreme Leader replied: “Yes! Such rapes are essential to prevent these anti-Islam women from entering paradise. If they are executed virgins, they will enter heaven. So rape is extremely important to prevent these elements from entering heaven.”
According to the researcher, political prisoners during the Shah’s period were also not spared from the practice of rape as a weapon of intimidation in prison.
The word is freed
In addition to sexual violence such as being exposed for hours in front of other detainees, or the use of electric shocks on the genitals, Amnesty also records degrading treatment such as deliberate refusal of access to toilets.
“There were no sanitary facilities, which was unbearable for them,” reports a health professional who treated a high school student who was imprisoned for more than a month after demonstrating near her school with her friends. “If one of them had her period, she wasn’t allowed sanitary napkins and her blood was spilling everywhere,” she describes.
“Today, the victims are speaking,” notes Azadeh Kian. “#MeToo has been there and also the ‘Woman, life, freedom’ movement. The body is used by the security forces as a battlefield, so denouncing becomes an act of resistance.”
Also read: Iranian Narges Mohammadi, Nobel Peace Prize winner, begins hunger strike in prison
From Iranian prisons, intellectual and activist figures, such as Nobel Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, have denounced this sexual violence against prisoners. “Inspiring figures for all inmates,” underlines Azadeh Kian.
However, the fear of ostracism and reprisals against loved ones continues to silence some victims. According to one of the mental health professionals interviewed by Amnesty International, the number of Iranian detainees who survived sexual violence during the uprising following the death of Mahsa Amini is much higher than the cases recorded in the report .
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