Many questions, few answers after Iran’s crackdown on protest that followed Mahsa Amini’s death

The United Nations has said that 22-year-old Iranian woman Jina Mahsa Amini’s death in custody in 2022 was the result of her being assaulted, contrary to Iran’s assertions that nobody was to blame.

“Our finding about Mahsa was that her death was caused by physical violence in the custody of the authorities,” Sara Hossain of the three-member UN rapporteur team told Sapan News.

Amini, a 22-year-old woman, was taken into custody by the morality police on September 13 for “improper wearing” of the hijab. She was hospitalised as “brain dead” the same night and pronounced dead on September 16, said a UN report that was released on March 19.

The team of rapporteurs of the United Nations Human Rights Council that investigated Amini’s death and its aftermath said there was a systematic attack on women, girls and others who stood up for human rights. The “crimes against humanity” included murder, sexual violence, disappearances and other inhumane acts.

Women had played a prominent role in the months-long protest movement with its slogan “Zan, zindagai, azaadi” – women, life, freedom.

The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission, established by the UN Human Rights Council in November 2022, comprised three legal experts, two of whom are from Southasia. Hossain, the mission chair, is a barrister at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, Shaheen Sardar Ali is a British-Pakistani law professor in Warwick in the United Kingdom and Viviana Krsticevic is the executive director of the Center for Justice and International Law.

By looking at what had happened previously to women taken into custody by the morality police, the team found evidence of a pattern of abuse such as beatings and assault.

Challenges of investigation

The team’s main challenge was to conduct its investigation from afar since Iranian authorities did not allow the members to visit the country. Despite being “completely open to meeting anybody”, the team could not visit the places where incidents happened or speak to those who were involved “either on the side of the protesters or on the side of the government”, said Hossain.

By speaking to witnesses and other sources, however, they gained a detailed – and grim – picture of the repression.

Another concern was the threats and harassment that Iranians face, particularly Iranian journalists, even when based outside the country. This prevents people from feeling free to speak even when they’re outside the country. As a result, the UN team had to take “a lot of precautions that limited access to people and information”.

Even so, the family members in Iran of some Iranians living outside were harassed, some lost jobs or faced arrest charges as well as other forms of threats and intimidation.

The team was also concerned by the government’s disruption of Amini’s family’s attempts to commemorate her death. Her uncle went missing for several days. Amini’s lawyer, who was supposed to accept the Sakharov Prize 2023 on her behalf in Strasbourg, was also arrested and faced multiple charges.

“I think that is a whole pattern,” said Hossain. It was evident with the families of other protesters and those involved in the protests after Amini’s death in custody. “Their family members were also repeatedly harassed.”

Brutal crackdown, abuse

The UN team found that another case was similar to that of Amini’s. On October 1, 2023, 17-year old student Armina Garavand fell into a coma after women members of the vice squad threw her to the ground in a subway station in Tehran. She died in hospital due to severe brain damage.

As with Amini, the authorities did everything possible to conceal the events surrounding the death. Riot police were present in large numbers at Garavand’s funeral on October 29 where several women, including human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, were arrested for not wearing a headscarf.

In the protests that followed Amini’s death, the team discovered that an estimated 551 people were killed, including 104 on the same day in the town of Zahedan, in the Iranian province of Baluchistan. People were gunned down as they left a mosque on a Friday.

“In that incident, and many others, we found the kind of weaponry that was being used included firearms you don’t use in law and order maintenance: AK47s, assault rifles, and ammunition like metal pellets and paintball guns,” said Hossain.

Another significant injury was blindings. Faces and eyes, heads, necks, torsos and genital areas were targeted, shot at directly by paintball guns at a short range. “Several witnesses actually said to us that they saw the attacker looked straight at them… and shot straight at them,” said Hossain.

Some of the injured were unable to get medical care due to fear of being arrested. In the immediate aftermath of the protests, security forces surrounded many hospitals or had a presence inside.

“They were picking people up as they went in or as they identified them,” said Hossain. “In some places, we also got evidence that hospital staff were told that they needed to hand over anyone who came with injuries. Some did and some didn’t.”

Victims told the UN team that they were afraid of being treated for fear of being marked as protesters. “So some of them delayed their medical care for weeks,” said Hossain. “They had appalling infections and other things as a result.”

The Iranian government’s “pardon” of 22,000 people in February 2023 indicates that at least that many were picked up or charged. The UN rapporteurs believe that many are still in custody.

Witnesses testified to conditions in custody that included sexual violence, gang rape or rape with an object, besides beatings, electric shocks and other forms of torture and ill treatment.

Several women told the UN mission of abuse being directed at them including while they were being tortured. One of the torturers told a victim “that this was the freedom you wanted”, said Hossain. “So equating their demands with sexual violence.”

The team also found that children and young people were held in custody. “Some children were held in conditions which were almost equal to enforced disappearance because nobody knew where they were,” said Hossain.

Many detainees were unable to contact lawyers and families. Some were held in solitary confinement for days. Many were charged with vague offences like “waging war against God” and “corruption on earth”. People involved in “completely legitimate acts of peaceful protest, which are totally permitted and enabled under international human rights law, were being prosecuted through these processes”, said Hossain.

The team found that nine men had been executed. This had “a huge effect in terms of suppressing the protests early on because of the fear factor”, according to her.

Currently, 26 death penalties are pending against those involved with the protests. The UN team has called for a total suspension and review of all of those cases, “and of course, withdrawing those death sentences”.

Hossain identified two more important issues. The first, repression in the digital space. Those organising the protests or showing solidarity or support were tracked online and their posts from Facebook or Instagram were used to prosecute them.

The second concern was internet shutdowns imposed at the same time as protests. “So you couldn't follow what was going on, you couldn’t report,” said Hossain.

The team found that gender persecution sometimes intersected with ethnicity and race. “Mahsa Amini herself was an Iranian Kurdish woman,” noted Hossain. “This finding of gender persecution intersecting with ethnicity and race is due to the way in which the discriminatory laws on the basis of gender applied in the context of minorities as well, in exacerbating the situation.”

The UN has extended the team’s mandate for a year, so the research will continue. “I’m glad we have it because we received a lot of information and evidence in the last few months of the work, which we were not really able to fully assess by lack of time,” said Hossain.

‘Universal jurisdiction’

The rapporteurs found that the nature of the crimes is such that other states can prosecute the perpetrators on the basis of “universal jurisdiction”, including those who fled Iran. Many countries require the accused to be on their territory, but others such as France have broader legislation and can prosecute suspects anywhere.

Some violations could also fall under the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, said the UN team. States could hold Iran accountable under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which Iran is a party to.

Ethnic minorities such as Kurds, Azeris and Baluch were particularly targeted by human rights violations and government violence.

“The biggest challenge I think we face, in addition to doing the work, is having the findings be taken seriously,” said Hossain. “What is the point of human rights investigations unless you accept their premise, which is that human rights are universal?”

Hossain notes that while it is important to have accountability on what’s happening in Gaza, it is not a reason to duck accountability on Iran. “Whether we’re talking about Gaza or Iran”, accepting such investigations would mean that wherever a violation of human rights occurs, whoever is involved, the world will hold them to account, said Hossain.

Rob Vreeken is the Istanbul correspondent for the Dutch daily De Volkskrant.

This is a Sapan News syndicated feature.