In a report published on Wednesday, December 6, Amnesty International documents some 40 cases of rape and sexual violence against Iranian detainees arrested during the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ uprising following the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022.
“My friends and I took off our veils in public and sang. I never thought the security forces would arrest us for that,” said Maryam, an Iranian protester whose testimony was collected by Amnesty International in Iran.
The young woman claims to have been taken to a van by members of the Revolutionary Guard and then locked up for two months in a detention center of the group, considered terrorist by some countries, including the United States, where she was tortured.
“Two agents raped me, including anally with a bottle. Not even animals do this kind of thing. I was very small compared to them. After that, I lost consciousness,” she denounces the human rights organization.
Maryam’s story is one of 45 testimonies collected between January and August 2023 by Amnesty International and transcribed in a report published on Wednesday, December 6. The NGO spoke with these former Iranian prisoners, “arbitrarily detained” between September and December 2022, or with their lawyers and their families, and had access to photographic evidence and medical records.
Among these forty chilling testimonies are the stories of 26 men who were victims of sexual abuse, as well as seven minors, including a 12-year-old boy.
Amnesty International denounces “the use of rape and other forms of sexual violence by Iranian security forces that constitute torture and other forms of ill-treatment” to intimidate, punish and humiliate protesters of the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ uprising of 2022.
The NGO, which has been monitoring human rights violations in Iran for years, has reported an “alarming increase” in the use of rape and sexual violence during detention, compared to previous waves of protests.
These tortures, the report states, are intended to “instill fear and inflict lasting trauma” to deter them from participating in future protests or other acts of resistance, such as exposing themselves in public in the case of women and girls.
After their arrest, most victims suffer physical and psychological trauma related to rape and other forms of violence. For some, this manifests itself in suicide attempts. The mother of a raped high school student told Amnesty International that her son had tried to end her life twice while he was detained.
Without legal procedures
According to the report, the rapes and sexual violence took place “in detention centers and police vans, as well as in schools or residential buildings illegally used as places of detention.”
The perpetrators of these acts of torture were identified by their victims as members of the Revolutionary Guard, the Bassij paramilitary force and the Ministry of Intelligence, as well as agents from various branches of the police. “To date, Iranian authorities have not charged or prosecuted any state officials for the rapes and other acts of sexual violence documented in the report,” Amnesty International said.
Only three of the victims dared to take legal action, but two of them withdrew their complaint after being threatened. “The third person was ignored for several months and a senior official told him that he had ‘confused’ a body search with sexual violence,” reports the NGO, whose general secretary, Agnès Callamard, denounces the complicity of the Iranian Justice.
“Prison rape has existed since the beginning of the Islamic Republic,” explains Azadeh Kian, an Iran specialist, who does not say she is surprised by Amnesty International’s revelations. “In the 1980s, young women arrested for political crimes were raped before their execution. Their executioners believed that if they were virgins they would go to heaven, to which they should not be entitled. A temporary marriage (a practice authorized in Shiite Islam called ‘sigheh ‘ in Iran, editor’s note) was organized and a dowry in the form of sweets was sent to the young woman’s family.
When asked on December 7, 1986 about the mass use of rape in prisons, the Supreme Leader replied: “Yes! Such rapes are essential to prevent these anti-Islam women from entering paradise. If they are executed virgins , they will enter heaven. So violation is extremely important to prevent these elements from entering heaven.”
According to the researcher, political prisoners during the Shah’s period were also not exempt from the practice of rape as a weapon of intimidation in prison.
“Today the victims speak”
In addition to sexual violence, such as being naked for hours in front of other detainees or the use of electric shocks to the genitals, Amnesty also records degrading treatment, such as the deliberate denial of access to toilets.
“There were no sanitary facilities, which was unbearable for them,” says a health professional who treated a high school student who was imprisoned for more than a month after demonstrating near her school with her friends. “If one of them had her period, she wasn’t allowed sanitary pads and her blood was spilled everywhere,” she describes.
“Today the victims speak,” says Azadeh Kian. “#MeToo has been there and so has the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement. The body is used by security forces as a battlefield, so reporting becomes an act of resistance.”
Intellectual figures and activists, such as Nobel Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, have denounced this sexual violence against prisoners.
However, fear of ostracism and retaliation against loved ones continues to silence some victims. According to one of the mental health professionals interviewed by Amnesty International, the number of Iranian detainees who survived sexual violence during the uprising following the death of Mahsa Amini is much higher than the cases recorded in the report.
Article adapted from its original in French
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