Iran Executions Almost Doubled In 2022

Female and male victims including some as young as eighteen have told Iran International TV that sexual violence against detained protesters is quite widespread. Their stories are very difficult to verify due to victims’ fear of disclosing personal information and retribution against them and their families.

One of the victims said she and others who were arrested with her were stripped naked in front of male officers at Vali Asr Garrison in Tehran, groped in the genital area, sprayed with cold water, and repeatedly tased to force them to consent to make so-called televised “confessions” against themselves and others. “They threatened us with rape,” the victim who was freed on bail after twenty days said.

“There were two female and two male officers in the van [that took us to Enghelab Police Station]. The men body searched us in the most disgusting manner,” another female victim from Tehran who was arrested with others on Enghelab Avenue said, adding that the male officers told them to shut up when they protested to being touched by them when there were female officers present.

A victim from the religious city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran, said she and eleven others were stripped in front of male officers and then forced to squat jump while the officers “frenziedly laughed.” Others have also said officers had groped their backsides and squeezed their breasts during arrest and interrogations. Many say they were threatened with rape or even rape of their family members.

These incidents have been reported from detention centers, prisons, and sometimes in places outside the official system such as warehouses out of town in several major cities including Esfahan, Rasht, Tehran, Karaj, Bandar Abbas, Ahvaz, Tabriz, Sanandaj, Amol, and Mashhad.

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There are some reports of much worse violence. Armita Abbasi, a young woman of 20, was reportedly raped brutally after being arrested on October 10. She was taken to a hospital in Karaj on October 18 by security forces with multiple injuries including internal bleeding, a shaved head, and evidence of repeated rape. Reportedly, they tried to pressure the doctors to attribute the rape trauma evidence to a time prior to her arrest. Her trial, according to her mother, has been scheduled for January 26.

Influential Sunni cleric Mowlavi Abdolhamid Esmail-Zehi in his Friday sermon December 23 referred to reports of rape and torture of detainees. In a tweet on December 5, Abdolhamid had said the accounts of sexual assault on female detainees to humiliate them or to force them to make false “confessions” against themselves corroborate the allegations made by the media and urged the judiciary to investigate such allegations.

Ladan Boroumand, cofounder and research director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation for the Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy in Iran, told Iran International that the government is using sexual violence to demonstrate that it knows no boundaries when it comes to achieving its goal of suppressing the protest movement, to humiliate the detainees, and to instil fear in other people.

In a report on December 21 entitled “Brutal Repression in Kurdistan Capital”, Human Rights Watch said it has documented serious abuses, including sexual harassment and assault against detainees. Two women arrested together during the first week of protests in September told the global rights watchdog that security forces beat, sexually assaulted, and threatened them with rape during arrest and while they were held at the police station.

SpaceX Chief Executive said in a tweet on Monday that “approaching 100 Starlinks active in Iran”, three months after he confirmed he would activate the service in the country to help Iranians circumvent internet restrictions imposed by the government amid nationwide protests.

Back in September Twitter billionaire had announced he would activate Starlink in Iran as part of the United States effort “to advance internet freedom” and facilitate “the free flow of information” to Iranians.

The Iranian regime has been severely restricting Internet access in general and access to popular social media platforms, such as Instagram, that play a key role in protester communications. These restrictions have caused many problems for those who rely on social media to promote their businesses and hugely damaged e-commerce.

The Islamic Republic has been witnessing mass protests that erupted after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody in mid-September for wearing what the authorities deem “inappropriate attire.”

The government is extremely nervous that people use the Internet and social media to share news and images about protests, possibly motivating a larger segment of the population to join demonstrations.

Earlier this year, several US lawmakers and the former US official Victoria Coates, who served as senior advisor to the energy secretary in the Trump administration, called on entrepreneur Elon Musk to activate Starlink satellite access for Iranians.

Reports on social media during September and October said that private entities have smuggled Starlink reception equipment into Iran.

Mahan commercial flight 063, carrying Ali Daei's wife and daughter, which had left Tehran airport at 11:15 am local time for Dubai, was grounded by security personnel at Kish airport in a strange and rare act.

Eyewitnesses have told Iran International that the security agents forced Daei’s family to disembark saying that they cannot leave the country.

In response to the incident, Daei said, “Today, my wife and daughter legally boarded a plane from Imam Khomeini Airport [in Tehran] to go to Dubai, but the plane was returned from Dubai and landed in Kish to drop off my daughter and wife.”

He added that they are not arrested, but if the family was banned from leaving Iran, the police should have told them upon passport check.

Ali Daei is a hero for Iranians as he was an international soccer legend and the captain of the national team from 2000-2006. His record of 109 international goals was broken only 2021 by Cristiano Ronaldo.

“No one has given me an answer. I really don't know what the reason is for such moves. Did they want to arrest a terrorist? My wife and daughter were going to Dubai for a trip and their return flight was on Monday,” noted Daei.

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“It’s hard to believe! They passed through the passport control and boarded the plane quite legally, but they [security forces] returned so many passengers from Dubai to drop off my wife and daughter. If there was a problem, why didn't they arrest them? If there is no problem, why did they bring them back?” Daei reacted.

However, state-run news agencies Tasnim and ISNA have quoted an “informed source” as saying that Ali Daei's wife had been barred from leaving Iran “because of inviting people to go on nationwide strikes, but she had managed to revoke the ban through an unlawful way.”

Daei's wife was barred from traveling to Dubai before leaving Iran upon a Judicial order and a decision by the National Security Council headed by the President, the news agencies claimed.

The Islamic Republic's Judiciary alleges that Daei's wife had previously pledged to inform security organs of her decision to travel abroad in advance. However, once the relevant authorities learned about the flight, the plane carrying her was forced to land in Kish.

It’s not clear where the plane has headed after dropping off Daei’s wife and daughter – whether it continued to Dubai or flew back to Tehran.

Many other legendary Iranian soccer players such as Ali Karimi, who is abroad and Mahdi Mahdavi-Kia, Karim Bagheri, Ahmad Reza Abedzadeh, and others are supporting the protest movement.

Earlier this month, security forces sealed a jewelry shop and restaurant belonging to Ali Daei after he shut down his businesses to join anti-government strikes.

Daei had also revealed he was threatened after throwing his weight behind the anti-regime protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini in mid-September.

The nationwide protests in Iran have continued for 101 days with regime forces killing hundreds of people and detaining thousands of others, including football players and celebrities.

Earlier, Daei decided not to travel to Qatar to attend the World Cup 2022 due to the brutality and deadly force used by the government against unarmed protesters.

"Seven main leaders of the recent protests related to the UK were detained by intelligence services of the IRGC including dual nationals who were trying to leave the country," a statement published by state-controlled media read.

The British foreign ministry said it was seeking further information from Iranian authorities on reports that British-Iranian dual nationals had been arrested in Iran.

Britain’s MI5 said on November 16 that UK authorities had discovered at least 10 “potential threats” since January to “kidnap or even kill British or UK-based individuals perceived as enemies of the regime.” London's Metropolitan Police alerted Iran International at the time of imminent danger to two of its journalists.

The protests, in which demonstrators from all walks of life have called for the fall of Iran's ruling theocracy, has posed one of the biggest challenges to the Shi'ite Muslim-ruled Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution.

Since the protests began the regime has been blaming foreign “enemies” for organizing and instigating the unrest. It has offered no evidence to substantiate its claims. Earlier, the authorities claimed to have arrested nine foreigners in the protests.

So far, security forces have killed more than 500 civilians, arrested around 18,000 people and hanged two protesters after bogus trials.

The Islamic Republic has a long history of detaining foreign and dual nationals on trumped up charges in what amounts hostage taking, to have bargaining chips against Western countries.

In a statement Saturday, the Association of Qom Seminary Teachers urged the authorities to continue executions but use the amputation punishment to deter people from joining the protests instead of lenient punishments in the law such as exile.

The association (Jame’e Moddaresin-e Howzeh Elmiye-ye Qom) suggested that anyone who “instigates fear in society” -- supposedly by participation in anti-government protests -- is belligerent (mohareb) which in Iran's Sharia-based laws is punishable by death, crucifixion, severance of limbs, and/or exile.

Ayatollah Abbas Ka’abi, a member of the clerical group, said last week that despite normal practice in the case of murders where victims’ families can practice the “right to blood” – that is demand retribution in kind (death sentence), ‘blood money’, or forgive -- the “imam” of the society should punish a belligerent protester even if the family forgives the killer.

Another member, Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, said Friday that those who participate in the protests, whether this includes direct involvement in the killing of government forces or not, should be considered as belligerents and be found guilty of “corruption on earth.”

The clerics, who are loyal followers of Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei and are regime insiders benefitting from power and perks, simply twisted a 1,400-year-old vague concept of a crime to fit the regime’s agenda against dissent.

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“The severing of fingers of one hand and toes of the opposite foot could be effective [as a deterrent punishment]” if a person “instigates fear in society, without the involvement of the [opposition] media and without urging others to follow suit,” the clerics of the powerful association suggested while arguing that the ‘exile’ option is too lenient to “prevent crime”.

Several Shiite religious scholars this month voiced their opposition to this interpretation of Islamic law, but the harsh approach is what the regime prefers.

They also stated that even if no killing is involved, a protester’s “crime” should be punished by death if they commit it with the “goal of causing fear and a sense of insecurity in the society and knowing that these actions would be publicized domestically and abroad.” Exile would be totally ineffective in such cases, they declared, because such actions tarnish Iran's image in the international community and bear other costs for the government.

The reference to the media and publicizing acts of protest is a reminder of the regime’s extreme sensitivity to media coverage of its repressive acts, particularly by television channels abroad that broadcast in Persian.

The Islamic Republic on December 8 hanged 23-year-old Mohsen Shekari after a secret Revolutionary Court trial. Four days later Majidreza Rahnavard, also 23, was hanged on a street in Mashhad in front of a hand-picked group of insiders to call it a “public hanging”. At least forty protesters are in risk of execution or death penalty sentences by courts in nearly all of which their rights, such as the right to due process, are grossly violated.

Besides intellectuals, politicians and activists in Iran, some high-ranking clerics and former officials such as the prominent scholar Ayatollah Mostafa Mohaqeq-Damad have also condemned protester executions or urged leniency.

A top Sunni cleric, Mowlavi Abdolhamid Esmail-Zehi, who leads the Sunni Friday congregation of Zahedan in the capital of the restive province of Sista-Baluchestan, argued this Friday that the death sentences passed on protesters were not religiously justifiable and warned about the consequences of such harsh punishments. “No ruler has such authority,” he said defiantly.

The international community including various rights organizations and activists, western officials, and politicians have also condemned the recent executions and urged the government to put an end to death sentences. In the past two weeks many European parliamentarians have also offered political sponsorship to detained protesters who are in imminent danger of execution or being sentenced to death.