March
16, 2023
Iranian
authorities have used torture methods including sexual violence against
imprisoned children as part of a crackdown on recent protests, according to
rights group Amnesty International.
“Iran’s
intelligence and security forces have been committing horrific acts of torture,
including beatings, flogging, electric shocks, rape and other sexual violence
against child protesters as young as 12 to quell their involvement in
nationwide protests,” Amnesty said Thursday.
A
report by the group exposed “the torture methods that the Revolutionary Guards,
the paramilitary Basij, the Public Security Police, and other security and
intelligence forces used against boys and girls in custody to punish and
humiliate them and to extract forced ‘confessions.’”
Diana
Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East
and North Africa, said Iran’s “violence against children exposes deliberate
strategy to crush the vibrant spirit of the country’s youth and stop them from
demanding freedom and human rights.”
Amnesty
“obtained testimonies from the victims and their families, as well as further
testimonies on the widespread commission of torture against scores of children
from 19 eyewitnesses, including two lawyers and 17 adult detainees who were held
alongside children,” the human rights group said.
The
protests were first ignited by the death of 22-year-old Iranian Mahsa Amini,
who died on September 16, 2022, after being detained by the country’s morality
police.
According
to Amnesty, Iran has admitted to detaining more than 22,000 people during the
protests, but hasn’t specified how many of those were children. The group
estimates that thousands of children may be among the detainees.
Amnesty
also said that “state agents used rape and other sexual violence, including
electric shocks to genitals, touching genitals, and rape threats as a weapon
against child detainees to break their spirits, humiliate and punish them,
and/or extract ‘confessions.’”
“Other
torture methods recounted include floggings, administering electric shocks
using stun guns, the forced administration of unidentified pills, and holding
children’s heads underwater,” the Amnesty report added.
Amnesty
called on Iran to release any children detained for protesting peacefully, and
urged other countries to “exercise universal jurisdiction over Iranian
officials, including those with command or superior responsibility, reasonably
suspected of criminal responsibility for crimes under international law,
including the torture of child protesters.”
CNN
has reached out to Iran’s government for comment but has not yet had a
response, nor has the government yet commented publicly on the report.
In
February, CNN revealed the existence of an extensive network of illegal
clandestine jails, or black sites, in Iran.
The
methods of repression and torture carried out in this shadowy network appear to
be even more horrific than the regular harsh treatment that arrested protesters
can expect in legal detention sites.
CNN
has reached out to the Iranian government for comment on the allegations of
torture and abuse at these unofficial locations but has not received a
response.
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