To 8 October 2022, the crackdown on protesters has resulted in the killing of at least 193 people, including 18 children, the injury of many others, and the arrest and detention of hundreds of predominantly peaceful protesters and civil society activists who demanded justice and accountability for the death of Ms. Amini, a young Kurdish woman who died in custody of the morality police in Tehran on 16 September 2022. [1]
Detainees include a large number of human rights defenders (HRDs), journalists, lawyers, and activists. [2]
Ms. Amini’s death in police custody on 16 September 2022 sparked widespread protests across the country. Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in major cities, such as Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Tabriz, and many other localities. During two weeks, many universities have witnessed large-scale demonstrations and targeted in brutal attacks by security forces. In october 2022, high school students in several cities also joined the protests and in some instances forced government’s education officials out of their schools.
The protests, which began with demands of justice for Ms. Amini, the abolition of the morality police’s patrols, and the abolition of mandatory hijab, have now become a movement for freedom and democracy. [3] In many instances, women have been at the forefront of the protests. Many of them have removed their hijab, burned their headscarves, and cut their hair. Some women wearing the hijab and full length chador have also joined the protests.
Police and plainclothes agents have brutally cracked down on protesters, using live ammunition, pellets, tear gas, water cannons, and batons to suppress the demonstrations. They have also used ambulances to transport some of their personnel or the detainees.
On 30 September 2022, people gathered in front of a police station in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan and Baluchistan Province, after Friday prayers at a nearby site to demand accountability for the rape of a 15-year-old girl by a police commander in the province’s city of Chabahar, and to join the nationwide protests. According to media reports, security forces opened fire from the rooftop on the crowd and on some people who were still engaged in their prayers nearby. As a result, tens of people were killed. A number of other people were also killed in the city in the following days. Many of the victims were shot in the head and heart, most likely by snipers. Official sources reported the deaths of six members of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) in Zahedan, but the circumstances of their deaths are unclear.
The League for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran (LDDHI) has recorded names of at least 193 protesters killed in various cities, including at least 18 children. [4] This death toll includes 85 victims killed in Zahedan alone, including six children, according to documentation by Baluch activists. The actual protest death toll is likely higher, as many victims have not been identified yet and sufficient information is not available to corroborate reports of some deaths.
Killings of protesters during previous large-scale demonstrations still remain unaccounted for. Hundreds of mainly peaceful protesters were shot dead during food protests in December 2017 and January 2018 and in petrol protests in November 2019. Investigations into those atrocities are also long overdue.
Our organisations also urge the European Union (EU) to impose targeted sanctions on the officials responsible for the brutal suppression of protesters and reiterate their call [5] for the international community to press the Iranian authorities to comply with their obligations under international human rights law and to respect women’s rights, including, but not limited to, by:
- repealing Articles 638 and 639 of the Islamic Penal Code;
– decriminalising the non-wearing of the headscarf and accepting women’s right to choose their own clothing;
– dismantling the morality police; and
– ending gender-based persecution and discrimination as a whole, in law as enshrined in the Constitution, the Civil Code, and other laws, and in practice.