The use of the “excessive and lethal” force on the repression of the protests in Iranthe imprisonment of hundreds of people under unjustified charges and the issuance of death sentences in summary judgments andgrossly unfair” have marked the year 2022 in that country, denounced this Thursday the organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) in its annual report.
The death in September of the young Mahsa Amini in the custody of the Iranian morality police for not wearing the mandatory headscarf sparked a wave of “mostly peaceful and often crowded” protests which, according to HRW, were repressed with “cartridges, assault rifles and firearms”.
As recently as November, human rights groups were investigating the death of at least 341 protesters, including 52 children.
“With massive repression, illegitimate elections, apparent corruption and mismanagement, Iranian autocracy rules with what it has left: brute force,” HRW Iran researcher Tara Sepehri said in the report.
In this sense, HRW asked countries, especially those of the “global south”, to increase their pressure on Tehran to stop its repression.
In their attempts to suppress the protests, Iran has already issued 16 death sentences and executed four peopledespite international calls to annul these sentences, issued in trials described as “farces” by various authorities and international organizations, in addition to HRW.
Several of the sentences have been for the crime of “moharebe” or “enmity with God”, mostly against people accused of having killed “basijis” -Islamic militiamen- who participated in the repression of the protests, although there are also for injuring police officers or blocking streets.
Iranian activists denounce that the trials are being held behind closed doors, in record time, with confessions obtained under torture and in many cases without lawyers present.
The NGO denounced that there are more than 15,000 protesters in custodydetained in overcrowded prisons and without access to “due process”, and without the authorities investigating “the numerous accusations of torture or the routine restriction of detainees to legal advice”.
Among them are “hundreds of human rights defenders, activists, journalists and lawyers detained for their peaceful dissent or for supporting the protests.”
This type of repression has also occurred in Iran in other protests linked to labor strikes and protests against rising prices.
HRW also denounced the increase in the number of executions linked to drug-related crimes (at least 130).
In this context, HRW stressed that in Iran women face serious discrimination in matters related to marriage, divorce, inheritance and decisions on parental authority, while cases of femicide are being reported more and more without there being regulations to prevent abuses. and protect survivors.
(With information from EFE)
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Source-www.infobae.com