News Center- Almost a year has passed since Jina Mahsa Amini was killed in custody by Iran’s so-called “morality police”. The protests that sparked in Iran and Rojhilat following the killing of Jina Mahsa Amini continue. Hundreds of people, including children, have been killed, injured and thousands have been arrested in the attacks of Iranian security forces on protesters.

 

Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the ‘Woman Life Freedom’ uprising, Iranian authorities are ramping up harassment and intimidation against victims’ families to enforce silence and impunity, said Amnesty International in a new research.

In the 42-page research, Amnesty International said that the families of those who were unlawfully killed during the “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” uprising have been tormented with arbitrary arrest and detention, prosecuted, flogged and subject to coercive interrogation. The research finds that the Iranian authorities have been subjecting victims’ families to arbitrary arrest and detention, imposing cruel restrictions on peaceful gatherings at grave sites and destroying victims’ gravestones. “The graves of ‘Woman Life Freedom’ activists vandalised with tar, paint and arson and headstones broken,” said Amnesty International in the research.

The research documents the cases of 36 victims’ families from 10 provinces in Iran who have been subjected to human rights violations in recent months. They include families of 33 individuals who were unlawfully killed by the security forces during the protests; families of two individuals who were arbitrarily executed in connection with the protests; and family of one torture survivor who committed suicide upon release from detention.

“Not a single official has been held to account for the unlawful killing of hundreds of men, women and children by security forces during the authorities’ brutal crackdown on the popular uprising that engulfed Iran following the death in custody of Mahsa Zhina Amini on 16 September last year. Amnesty considers the mental pain and anguish inflicted on mourning families by the authorities’ abusive practices to be a violation of the absolute prohibition on torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment under international law,” said Amnesty International.

“The cruelty of the Iranian authorities knows no bounds. As the anniversary of the uprising nears, victims’ families fear that the authorities will deploy their usual repressive tactics to bar them from holding commemorations. In their sinister attempt to cover up their crimes, the authorities are compounding the anguish and suffering of victims’ families by preventing them from demanding justice, truth and reparation or even planting flowers at their loved ones’ graves. We are calling on all countries to exercise universal jurisdiction and issue arrest warrants for Iranian officials including those with command responsibility who are reasonably suspected of criminal responsibility for crimes under international law committed during and in the aftermath of the uprising. The international community must also press the Iranian authorities to respect families' right to freedom of expression, quash all unjust convictions and sentences against them and drop all charges against those facing reprisals for speaking out,” said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Middle East and North Africa.