People Hold Global Rallies In Support Of Iranian Women
On the occasion of the International Women's Day, protests were held in several cities including in Germany, the UK, and Sweden in solidarity with Iranian women.
On the occasion of the International Women's Day, protests were held in several cities including in Germany, the UK, and Sweden in solidarity with Iranian women.
The demonstrations in London and Stockholm were held outside parliaments, with the protesters demanding that these counties hold Iran accountable for its human rights violations.
Designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization was the key demand in the gatherings. The IRGC is the main force for the crackdown on dissent by the Islamic Republic.
The demonstrators said that the IRGC has not only suppressed women during the 2022 uprising – ignited by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, but also put them under pressure, imprisoned them, and killed them over the past four decades for pursuing their basic rights.
In Gothenburg, another Swedish city, Iranians gathered to support women in Iran and to call for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
The protesters carried pictures of political prisoners such as Nasrin Sotoudeh and Narges Mohammadi, as well as pictures of some of those killed in the uprising.
In London, a group of Iranian women staged a silent protest in front of the parliament, wearing red dresses similar to the characters of the TV series "The Handmaid's Tale". The Handmaid's Tale is a series set in a dystopian New England, in which an authoritarian, totalitarian, religious and anti-women government as overthrown the United States government and victimizes its citizens, especially women.
The protesters outside the British Parliament told Iran International that Iranian women are the real victims of a religious and oppressive government as they grapple with the consequences of a gender apartheid, highlighting the similarities between the series and the real lives of women in Iran.
Consequently, they deployed military units specialized in combating armed groups, alongside security forces armed with military-grade weapons, authorized to use lethal force, torture, and terrorize civilians to suppress the uprising, stated Omid Shams, a lawyer and director at Justice for Iran, in an interview with Iran International.
Shams also noted that authorities deployed tanks and armored vehicles in several provinces. His organization identified at least twenty military units from the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), the IRGC’s Basij militia force, and the police, along with 526 individuals directly involved in severe crimes against protesters.
The report highlights recurring suppression tactics, including the deliberate and indiscriminate firing on protesters, bystanders, and those documenting the attacks, reminiscent of previous protests such as those in 2019.
The protests erupted when Iran’s ‘hijab police’ arrested Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman in the street for improper attire and hours later she was transferred to hospital with severe head injuries and died three days later. Months of protests that followed represented the most serious challenge to the Islamic Republic since its inception in 1979. Iranian authorities had used brutal force against protesters in the past also, the worst being in November 2019, when they killed at least 1,500 people in the streets.
Justice for Iran, a London-based non-governmental organization (NGO), focuses on human rights abuses in Iran. It maintains a database of political prisoners in Iran (The Atlas of Iranian Prisons) and organized the Iran Atrocities tribunal in London to mark the first anniversary of the November 2019 protests.
The organization's new 250-page report, titled "Waging War on Civilians: Exposing Iran's Repressive Units and Crimes Against Humanity," offers a comprehensive overview of the command structure responsible for the protester massacre, the forces involved, and the weaponry used.
During the Woman, Life, Freedom protests, which began in mid-September following Amini’s death, security forces reportedly targeted passing cars, public transport, residential and commercial buildings, medical centers, and hospitals, instilling fear among citizens.
Many protesters were systematically targeted in the face, resulting in numerous cases of blindness. Iran Human Rights (IHR) reported in September 2023 that women comprised 9 percent of slain protesters and 28% of those who suffered eye injuries.
Justice for Iran employed various methodologies, including open-source intelligence, expert interviews, and an in-depth analysis of visual evidence from its archive database of 35,000 videos, to assess the government's actions during the 2022-23 protests and identify serious human rights violations.
Based on its findings, the report argues that authorities treated the protests as an armed conflict, labeling protesters as combatants and deploying military units and security forces authorized to use lethal force, torture, and terrorize civilians.
In April 2022, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, called for a robust response to criticism and attacks against the Islamic Republic, advocating for the use of "hybrid warfare" to counter various forms of aggression.
Justice for Iran has shared its findings with relevant international rights organizations, including the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on Iran, established in December 2022 after the brutal crackdown on protesters. The mission is set to release a preliminary report on March 8 and a comprehensive report on March 18.
The Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) was established by the UN human rights council in November 2022, two months after the Woman, Life, Freedom protests swept the country in response to the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. The mission published its first report on Friday after 18 months of investigations with help from experts, witnesses and victims, who will be corroborating the report's findings on a panel at the UN in Geneva later in the year.
The FFM concluded that Iran is responsible for the “physical violence” that led to the death of Amini in September 2022. The clerical regime has denied being responsible for her death or that she had been beaten, with authorities blaming a medical condition Amini had from childhood after a surgery. The UN report dismissed that as a cause of her death, confirming “the existence of evidence of trauma to Ms. Amini’s body, inflicted while in the custody of the morality police.”
“Credible figures suggest that as many as 551 protesters were killed by the security forces, among them at least 49 women and 68 children. Most deaths were caused by firearms, including assault rifles,” according to the report.
The violations and crimes include extra-judicial and unlawful killings and murder, unnecessary and disproportionate use of force, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, torture, rape, enforced disappearances, and gender persecution, the mission said. "The Mission found cases of women and girls subjected to rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence, including gang rape, rape with an object, electrocution of genitalia, forced nudity and groping,” the UN said.
It added that the regime carried out widespread and sustained human rights violations, which broke international laws and disproportionately targeted women and girls as well as children and members of ethnic and religious minorities. “The Mission found that gender persecution intersected with discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and religion.”
The report also confirmed that Iranian security forces used shotguns, assault rifles and submachine guns against demonstrators “in situations where there was no imminent threat of death or serious injury” to them, “thereby committing unlawful and extrajudicial killings.” It also found a pattern of protesters being shot intentionally in the eye, saying that “A pattern of extensive injuries to protesters’ eyes caused the blinding of scores of women, men and children, branding them for life.”
“These acts form part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population in Iran, namely against women, girls, boys and men who have demanded freedom, equality, dignity and accountability,” said Sara Hossain, chair of the Fact-Finding Mission. “We urge the Government to immediately halt the repression of those who have engaged in peaceful protests, in particular women and girls.”
The mission also said the Government arbitrarily executed at least nine young men from December 2022 to January 2024 after summary trials based on torture-coerced confessions. “Dozens of individuals, remain at risk of execution or receiving a death sentence in relation to the protests.”
“We urge the Iranian authorities to halt all executions and immediately and unconditionally release all persons arbitrarily arrested and detained in the context of the protests, and to end the repression of protesters, their families and supporters of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement,” said Shaheen Sardar Ali, a member of the mission.
Authorities are doubling down on their repression of families of victims, journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers, medical doctors and many others simply for expressing their views, supporting the protesters or seeking truth and justice for victims, the mission underlined.
In addition to crackdown on journalists at home, the mission has further established that Iran harassed, threatened and intimidated journalists and other media employees working outside the country, including those at Iran International, the BBC Persian service and others.
“The Iranian authorities summoned, threatened and in some cases arrested, detained and charged the family members of those journalists and media workers in an apparent effort to exert pressure on them and prevent them from reporting on the country.”
In October 2022, Iran sanctioned the BBC Persian service and Iran International television, and imposed asset freezes on their staff. Journalists also received serious threats, including to their lives and personal safety, leading to the involvement of the police in some countries.
In February 2023, Iran International TV had to temporarily relocate its offices in London to Washington DC, after the UK’s security forces determined it could no longer keep the staff safe following assassination attempts by Iran’s IRGC. However, the network reopened its offices in September 2023 at a new location amid tighter security.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has the obligation to uphold the rights of women and children, and to ensure the right to truth, justice, and reparations of all victims,” said Viviana Krsticevic, another member of the Mission. “Given our findings, this would entail, among other measures, an overhaul of criminal and civil laws, a reform of the justice system, and measures for accountability.”