Iran, The tragic balance of an oppressed country: 525 protesters killed, including 71 children and more than 19,000 people arrested

ROME – In the name of Mahsa Amini, shouting of Woman, Life, Freedom, women and men of all ages and all social classes have taken to the streets, in every region of Iran, to declare their open opposition to a regime that oppresses its population every day with systematic gender discrimination and violations of freedoms fundamental. The protest has flared up since last September and has continued ever since, despite the regime repressing all forms of dissent with violence and bloodshed. Amnesty International carries out a constant work of monitoring the very serious human rights violations that take place every day, on the streets of Tehran and throughout Iran, to collect evidence and to put pressure on Iranian and international institutions, so that laws such as the one on the obligation to wear the veil in public places, as well as the death penalty and torture. This is why the Organization re-launches the appeal to unite, also through an instrument of concrete solidarity such as the solidarity legacy, around the women and men who in Iran are putting their own lives at risk in the name of an ideal of freedom and justice.

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Women’s rights trampled on with violence. According to Iran’s Islamic penal code, any act deemed “offensive” to public decency is punished with imprisonment from ten days to two months or with 74 lashes. Women who appear in public without the veil must be punished with imprisonment from ten days to two months or with the payment of a cash fine.The minimum age of criminal responsibility for girls in Iran is nine years, but in fact the authorities impose the compulsory veil on girls from the age of seven, when they start elementary school.Those who do not respect these laws end up in the hands of the police and paramilitary forces, who every year arrest tens of thousands of women just for showing strands of hair under the veil or for wearing colorful clothes. Iranian women are regularly subjected to verbal harassment and physical assaults by police and paramilitary forces, even if they stop to talk to someone; they are hit with slaps, fists and batons and handcuffed. Being a girl in Iran means being at the mercy of the regime at all times.

The fuse that reignited the fire: the killing of Masha Amni. On 13 September Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a 22-year-old girl of Kurdish origins, was arrested in Tehran by the so-called morality police, accused of not wearing the obligatory veil correctly. According to eyewitnesses, Mahsa Amini was severely beaten as she was forcibly transferred to Vozara Detention Center in Tehran. Within hours she was transferred to Kasra hospital after falling into a coma. She died three days later. Immediately after Mahsa’s death, popular revolt broke out, causing a deadly repression by the Iranian authorities.

Death penalty and summary trials: protests repressed in blood. 525 protesters, including 71 children, have been killed and more than 19,000 people have been arrested since September. On 8 December, the authorities executed protester Mohsen Shekari, after convicting him in a grossly unfair trial on charges of “enmity against God”. Four days later, another young protester, Majidreza Rahanvard, was hanged after a show trial against him. The executions of Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyed Mohammad Hosseini took place on 7 January. All of them suffered unfair trials: they were denied their rights to be defended by a lawyer of their choice, the presumption of innocence, to remain silent by not answering questions and to have a fair and public trial.

Torture and extorted confessions. Numerous defendants were tortured and their confessions extracted in this way were used as evidence in trials. State TV aired the coerced “confessions” of at least nine defendants ahead of their trials. Amnesty International he fears that dozens more are at risk of execution, given the thousands of indictments filed so far. The fear of imminent executions is heightened by calls from parliament and other institutions for speedy trials and public executions.

Ignore all calls. “The Iranian authorities have ignored repeated calls from the international community to open investigations into these crimes. They have spread a narrative that questions the deaths of protesters, attributing them to suicides, road accidents, poisoning, overdoses or natural causes and defines those who protest ‘vandals in the pay of enemy powers’ – explains Riccardo Noury, spokesman for Amnesty International Italy – This is precisely the moment in which international solidarity is crucial. Amnesty International is committed every day to documenting the crimes committed by the Iranian authorities, but it is It is essential that we all unite around the struggle of thousands of women and men who are risking their lives to build a future of rights and freedoms”.

The “Legacy” Campaign. Continue to fight forever for a more just world, in which human rights are respected, in Iran as in the rest of the world: this is the invitation that Amnesty International addresses to everyone, through the campaign “Who will fight in your place when there is no will you be anymore?”. The solidarity legacy is an instrument of concrete solidarity that does not in any way harm the rights of the legitimate heirs and that does not require large estates. To remain independent, the Organization does not accept funds from governments, institutions or large companies, but it lives on donations from ordinary people. For this reason, everyone’s help is essential, even through a solidarity legacy. Everyone, through a testamentary legacy, can decide to leave a sum of money, real estate or movable property.

A non-binding gesture. It is a non-binding gesture, which can be rethought and modified at any time, to also leave one’s ideals as a legacy. With a bequest in favor of Amnesty International, each of us can pass the baton of our values ​​of justice, equity, respect for fundamental human rights to those who will come after. To receive more information on how to donate a solidarity legacy in favor of Amnesty International you can request the Guide Legacies by contacting Maria Grazia Diana, Legacy Program Manager, al 346 8274558, writing to [email protected] or by visiting the site.