2023-12-15 20:28:00
An official one hundred and twenty page report ‘They Raped Me Violently’: Sexual Violence as a Weapon to Suppress Iran’s Uprising ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ it details the appalling suffering of 45 of the victims, 26 men, 12 women and seven children. They were subjected to rape, gang rape and other forms of sexual violence by intelligence and defense forces after their arrest for resisting decades of oppression and experienced gender discrimination. The Iranian government has not yet charged anyone with these documented crimes.
“Our investigation reveals how Iran’s intelligence and security forces used rape and other sexual violence to torture, punish and inflict long-term physical and psychological harm on protesters, including children as young as twelve.” said Amnesty International Secretary General Agnés Callamard. “The harrowing confessions we have collected point to a larger pattern of using sexual violence as a key weapon in the Iranian government’s arsenal designed to suppress protest and dissent in order to cling to power at all costs.”
“Iranian prosecutors and judges are complicit not only in ignoring or covering up allegations of rape, but also in using confessions extracted through torture to frame false charges against survivors, sentencing them to either imprisonment or death.” Victims were left without help or redress; only with institutional impunity, silencing, and many deep and extensive physical and psychological scars,” added.
The report identifies members of the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij paramilitia, VEVAK, and various branches of the police force, including the public police, the investigative unit, and special units, as the perpetrators of the rape. Among the victims are women and girls who took off their head coverings in protest, as well as men and boys who took to the streets to express outrage at decades of gender inequality and oppression.
The true prevalence of sexual violence during the insurgency is difficult to estimate, as stigma and fear of reprisals commonly lead to underreporting. Nevertheless, Amnesty International managed to document in detail 45 cases across more than half of Iran’s provinces, along with additional accounts from survivors and other detainees about other cases. The movement has already informed the Iranian authorities of its findings, but has received no response from them.
16 of the 45 survivors, six women, seven men, a fourteen-year-old girl and two boys aged sixteen and seventeen, were raped. Six of them, four women and two men, even up to ten perpetrators. In addition to the genitals, batons, glass bottles or hoses were used for this purpose. Rapes occurred already during transportation or in detention centers, including temporary ones in schools and residential buildings.
Farzad, who was still raped in the van by a group of members of the special forces, said: “The plainclothes agents forced us to turn around to face the wall of the vehicle and put electric shocks on our legs… They beat me until they broke my nose and teeth. They pulled down my pants and raped me. They were really trying to tear me apart… I was throwing up a lot and bleeding from my anus.”
Raped by the Revolutionary Guards, Maryam remembers her rapists telling her: “You’re all addicted to penises, so we did you a favor. That’s what you want from freedom, isn’t it?’
The remaining 29 cases describe other forms of sexual violence such as physical attacks on the breasts, genitals or buttocks of the detainees; forced nudity, which was filmed in some cases; testicular torture using electric shocks, needles or ice; dragging women on the ground by their hair or cutting their hair; and threats of rape.
These cases were often accompanied by other forms of torture, such as beatings, whippings, electric shocks, administration of unknown pills or injections, deprivation of hunger and thirst, and inhumane conditions in detention centers. Survivors were also denied medical treatment, including for rape injuries.
The vast majority of survivors said they did not file a complaint after their release out of fear of further harm and the belief that the justice system is an instrument of oppression rather than justice. Six of them either revealed signs of torture or complained about it during questioning by prosecutors, but were ignored.
Three survivors filed an official complaint after their release, but two were forced to withdraw it by threats to kidnap and kill them or their loved ones. The third was ignored for months before a high-ranking official told him that he just mistook a personal search for sexual assault.
Amnesty International also obtained access to an official document dated 13 October 2022 that reveals how the authorities covered up complaints of sexual violence made by two young women against members of the Revolutionary Guards. In it, Tehran’s deputy prosecutor advises that the case be classified as “totally secret” and suggests its gradual closure.
Survivors told Amnesty International that they continue to cope with the physical and psychological trauma of the rape. The mother of the raped schoolboy said that he had already attempted suicide twice while in custody.
Sahar described the traumatic impact of the police stripping her down to her underwear, groping her breasts and genitalia, and threatening to rape her. “I used to be a fighter in my life,” she said. “Even though the Islamic Republic tried to break me, I kept going. Lately, though, I’ve been thinking a lot about suicide… I’m like a person who waits all day for night so he can sleep.”
Zahra, a victim of a member of the special forces, also described the long-lasting psychological toll that rape took. “I don’t think I’ll ever be the same person again,” she stated. “There is nothing that will bring me back, that will bring me back my soul… I hope that my statement will lead to justice, and not just for me.”
“Without political will and fundamental constitutional and legal reforms, Iran’s legal system will continue to be plagued by structural barriers,” Callamard lamented. “This system has repeatedly revealed its inability and unwillingness to effectively investigate crimes against international law.”
“With no hope of domestic justice, the international community has an obligation to stand with survivors and demand it. It should support the extension of the mandate of the UN Information Mission in Iran, which would ensure that evidence of crimes against international law and other heinous human rights violations is collected, preserved and analyzed by an independent mechanism. We appeal to states to initiate their own investigations against suspected perpetrators, under the principles of universal jurisdiction, with a view to issuing international arrest warrants.” she urged in conclusion.
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