Human rights: Amnesty: Children cruelly tortured during protests in Iran

The human rights organization Amnesty International has documented cruel torture of children and young people six months after the start of the latest wave of protests in Iran. Demonstrators were subjected to beatings, flogging, electric shocks, rape and other sexual violence by secret services and security agencies, Amnesty reported in a report published on Thursday night.

According to Amnesty, the violence was aimed at oppressing the country’s youth and crushing their protest. Dieter Karg, Iran expert at Amnesty Germany, said in a statement: “It is despicable that officials abuse their power in this way over vulnerable and frightened children, inflicting severe pain and fear on them and their families and inflicting severe physical and psychological harm on them leave scars.”

Electric shocks and unknown pills

Amnesty documented violence from the time of arrest, where children and young people were beaten in prison vans and tortured in detention centers. This included electric shocks to the genitals, forced administration of unknown pills and severe threats. Before they were released, state officials often threatened the children with arresting their relatives if they complained.

According to Amnesty International, children as young as 12 were also tortured. The human rights activists base their report on testimonies from dozens of detainees and relatives. Given the predominantly young protesters, Amnesty believes thousands of children were imprisoned. Just a few days ago, Iran’s judiciary revealed that at least 22,000 demonstrators had been arrested. Most of the protesters are said to have been released in the meantime. There are no exact figures from the state.

Demonstrators call for the fall of the Islamic Republic

The latest wave of protests in Iran was triggered by the death of the Iranian Kurd Jina Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old was arrested by moral guards in mid-September for violating Islamic dress codes and died in police custody a few days later. At the beginning, the protests were directed against the headscarf requirement. Later, the demonstrators called for the fall of the Islamic Republic. In the meantime, the political and spiritual leadership has shown itself to be self-confident again.

The young generation in particular has recently protested. The majority should not have been older than 25 years. Since the wave of protests in the fall, Iran’s leadership has been under more pressure than it has ever been since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Even months after the uprising, many women are continuing their protests in other forms, such as demonstratively ignoring the headscarf requirement.

Amnesty called for the detained children to be released and appealed to the international community: “Since there is no prospect of effective impartial investigations into the torture of children in Iran, we call on all states, as well as the federal government, to exercise universal jurisdiction over Iranian officials,” said Dieter Karg from Amnesty.