UN human rights experts demand that Iran reveal the fates of detainees, stop executions, and provide accountability amidst the brutal crackdown on protesters in recent months.
Amid reports of secret burial sites and executions, UN human rights experts demanded, on Friday, that Tehran disclose the fates of those detained, disappeared, and killed since the Islamic regime began its brutal crackdown on protesters in January.
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mai Sato, confirmed last week that she was among the experts urging the regime’s authorities to reveal the whereabouts of detainees and halt planned executions linked to the demonstrations.
Sato pointed to what she described as a significant discrepancy between the number of casualties acknowledged by the regime – over 3,117 as of last month – and estimates from human rights and grassroots organizations, which in some cases have reached into the tens of thousands.
The Islamic regime and human rights groups point fingers
The Islamic regime claimed that the majority of those killed were murdered by foreign-backed rioters, while human rights groups pointed the finger at Tehran’s security forces, claiming that the government cracked down in a similar fashion to that witnessed in the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom demonstrations.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency insisted that at least 7,015 people were killed in the protests and crackdown, including 214 government forces, which is hundreds less than figures published by the regime. Human rights groups, including those who earlier spoke to The Jerusalem Post, claimed the regime had forced families of killed protesters to say their loved ones were members of the Basij paramilitary force and killed by rioters.
“The true scale of the violent crackdown on Iranian protesters remains impossible to determine at this point,” the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights experts said. “The discrepancy between official figures and grassroots estimates only deepens the anguish of families searching for their loved ones and displays a profound disregard for human rights and accountability.”
“The vast majority of those detained or killed are ordinary people, including children, from all provinces and diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, as well as Afghan nationals,” Sato said.
“They include lawyers who sought to represent protesters, medical professionals who treated the wounded, journalists, writers, artists, and human rights defenders,” she added.
“When a state refuses to account for the whereabouts of its people, others will fill that void – and the picture that emerges will define this period in Iran’s history,” Sato wrote, encouraging Tehran to be forthcoming about the true scale of the atrocities.
30 individuals face the death penalty
At least 30 individuals are facing the death penalty for alleged offences linked to the January protests, including several minors, Amnesty International reported.
“The Iranian authorities are once again laying bare the depth of their disregard for the right to life and justice by threatening expedited executions and imposing death sentences in fast-tracked trials, only weeks after arrest.
“In weaponizing the death penalty, they are seeking to instill fear and crush the spirit of a population demanding fundamental change,” Amnesty International Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa Diana Eltahawy said.
“Children and young adults form the bulk of those caught in the machinery of state repression following the January protests, denied access to effective legal representation and subjected to torture or other ill-treatment and incommunicado detention to extract forced ‘confessions.’ The international community must take coordinated global action, pressuring the Iranian authorities to stop using the court system as a conveyor belt for executions.”
Matin Mohammadi and Erfan Amiri, both 17, are reportedly being held in connection with a fire inside a Basij base located in a mosque in Pakdasht. They were allegedly tortured into confessing before being put before the Revolutionary Court of Tehran at an unusually fast pace.
An informed source told Amnesty International that Basij agents arrested the teenagers on January 8, before the fire, and forced Amiri to confess after severe beatings. The source also said that interrogators had put a gun in his mouth and added that the judge refused to recognize the representation of at least three lawyers chosen by Amiri’s family, threatened them, and imposed a state-appointed lawyer who failed to defend the young man effectively.
Mohammadi reportedly remains in a detention facility for children, facing capital charges, despite international law outlawing the use of the death penalty on minors.
The Baha’i community
Sato acknowledged that, in connection with the protests, minority faiths such as the Baha’i community have faced heightened incitement and detention. In early February, the Baha’i community issued a statement saying it was being “scapegoated” for protests that erupted in response to the country’s economic crisis.
“International condemnation of the Iranian government’s persecution of the Baha’i community is widespread and indisputable,” said Principal Representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations Bani Dugal. “The Iranian government must heed these concerns – which have been repeated for so many decades – by respecting the rights of Baha’is and all religious and ethnic minorities.”
The Baha’i community also cited a recent forced confession aired on Iran’s Channel 2 in which two Baha’i men were allegedly coerced into admitting guilt.
“This is another attempt by the Iranian government to falsify the truth and present falsehoods to its own public. But this attempt is threadbare, and its baselessness is proven. During every period of national crisis, whether social, economic, or political, the Iranian authorities consistently and systematically scapegoated the Baha’is,” said Baha’i International Community’s United Nations Office in Geneva representative Simin Fahandej.
“The Baha’i community is often among the first to be accused of false allegations, scapegoated, and targeted through coordinated disinformation and hate campaigns. This is a repeated pattern, and we are seeing it again,” he said.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network told the Post that it is investigating more than 2,000 cases of Kurdish citizens being arrested, in many instances violently and without judicial warrants, and has so far publicly named 470 detainees. The NGO added that because of the ongoing security situation, it had been unable to obtain reliable information about the identities of many of those killed; it has thus far identified 242 members of the Kurdish community killed by regime forces during the protests.
“Due to the ongoing security situation, we have unfortunately been unable to obtain reliable information about the majority of those killed or to confirm many of their identities. So far, we have verified and documented the identities of 242 Kurdish citizens who were killed during the protests in Iran,” the Network confirmed.
Concerns by religious minorities and human rights experts heightened shortly before protests recommenced across the Islamic Republic.
While the first round of protests was in response to the weakening of the rial and the overall declining economy, the new round is said to have been in response to the regime’s brutality.
On Saturday, students protested across five campuses in Tehran on the 40-day memorial for those killed in earlier demonstrations, and on Sunday, a demonstration erupted in Mashhad, reported by Iranian state-affiliated media.
Iran International and Tousi reported that students at Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran staged a protest and blocked a street near the campus, chanting, “Don’t be afraid, we are all together.”
At Sharif University of Technology in the capital, chants of “Death to Khamenei” were allegedly heard along with “Long live the King,” referring to exiled monarch Reza Pahlavi.
The Media Line and Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.