'We Execute Those We Should' Says Iran’s Unflinching Judiciary

A group of doctors, lawyers and civil activists such as the Kian Foundation and the Simourq Association are among the signatories to the letter to Vaclav Balek, the head of the UN Human Rights Council for 2023.

They defiantly condemned the appointment of Iran's UN ambassador Ali Bahraini as the forum’s chair after Vaclav Balek said in a statement earlier this month that he had decided to appoint Bahraini following the receipt of a nomination from regional coordinators.

The forum to be held in Geneva on November 2 and 3 will focus on the contribution of science, technology, and innovation to the promotion of human rights including in the context of post-pandemic recovery.

In their letter, the signatories stated that according to the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, the violence of the security forces of the Islamic Republic during the nationwide protests led to the death of hundreds, including dozens of children and women, while hundreds of other protesters were seriously injured, and thousands were arrested.

Earlier, UN Watch launched a petition to the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to stop the Islamic Republic from chairing the forum and said there were still six months left to cancel the appointment.

The Islamic Republic was also voted out of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in December for policies contrary to the rights of women and girls. It is in addition, also investigating rights abuses in Iran in a special committee, while simultaneously allowing the regime to chair a key rights event.

Anti-compulsory hijab activist, Mozhgan Keshavarz, who was the first to raise the humiliating stirp search of female detainees, told Iran International Monday via video conference that she was first strip-searched after her arrest in April 2019 and detention at Vozara Detention Center in Tehran where the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in custody on September 16 last year.

Keshavarz said the search took place in front of a camera and was repeated when she was taken to Qarchak Prison for women, and then at a Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) detention center where she was photographed completely naked and was told the photos were taken to add to her case file to make sure she would not later claim she was tortured during her detention.

At the IRGC detention center she was held in a solitary cell where she had to sleep on the carpet-covered ground and to shower and use the toilet in front of the camera in the cell.

“I had to wash my body with my clothes on,” she said, adding that she does not think the feelings of humiliation and shame she felt would ever go way. “I’m not the same Mozhgan that I was who always laughed.”

Keshavarz was assaulted by one of her interrogators there and her neck tendon was broken which required surgery. She was finally allowed to go on medical furlough in 2021 and was conditionally freed later. She is currently living in hiding as the IRGC has issued another arrest warrant for her.

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Keshavarz was arrested with two other activists for offering white roses to women on a Tehran metro train, the International Women’s Day, and asking them to support anti-compulsory hijab activists.

She was later sentenced by a revolutionary court to a total of twenty-three years and six months -- five years for “assembly and collusion for acting against national security”, one year for “propaganda against the regime”, ten-years for “encouraging moral corruption” and seven years and six months for “insulting sanctities”—but the sentence was later reduced to twelve years and seven months after appeal.

Keshavarz’s story was first shared with the public through the Twitter account of the Me-too-Movement-Iran on Saturday. She told Iran International that she only wanted to share her feelings with others but soon found out that what happened to her is a routine practice in prisons and many other activists have had the same experience.

Since her revelations, other female activists including Zeynab Zaman, Shaparak Shajarizadeh and actress Mahnaz Afshar who were subjected to same humiliation have also come forward with their stories.

In a series of tweets Sunday, former political prisoner Nasibeh Shamsaei said she was forced to fully strip in front of prison cameras at a ward run by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) at Evin Prison of Tehran and again at Qarchak Prison for women.

“I was forced to do this three times. I was told to strip in a cell measuring two by one and a half meters at A2 Ward of the IRGC at Evin Prison with a camera above my head and I didn’t know who was watching… She made me squat and get up twice under the pretext that she wanted to make sure I hadn’t hidden anything in my vagina. The same thing happened when I arrived at Qarchak and once again after an in-person visit,” she wrote.

According to Shamsaei women were forced into such humiliating search even if they were having their periods. “After the in-person visit she forced me into it when I was having my period.”

The bill is not forceful enough for hardliners, because it bans religious conservatives from confronting women who don’t cover their heads. The bill mainly relies on cash fines to force women to wear the hijab.

Part of the regime in Tehran fears strict and forceful enforcement of hijab might trigger another round of protests, similar to last September when a 22-year-old woman died after her injuries in ‘morality police’ custody. 

While some hardliners demand harsh treatment of bad-hijab women, Vice President for Legal Affairs Mohammad Dehghan told reporters in Tehran on Monday: "We wish to avoid making hijab a pretext for further deepening divides and disputes in the country." He added: "We are thinking of using the issue as a basis to bring about national solidarity."

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Dehghan said that the current bill, which has been criticized by some hardliners as being focused on levying monetary penalties rather than confronting women in the streets, has been prepared by the Judiciary and the administration has simply tried not to change it dramatically. 

Referring to the criticisms, Dehghan said, "After the recent protests which were organized by foreigners, the issue of hijab must be dealt with a more comprehensive approach." He probably meant that the government needs to take a pragmatic stance to avoid further unrest. He reiterated that the government believes in "a cultural approach" to the issue.

Dehghan, however, made it clear that the government agrees that celebrities who promote the idea of "hijablessness" should be dealt with legal prosecution. He added that the security forces will deal with those who promote anti-hijab ideas based on foreign views. In other cases, law enforcement will simply advise women to observe the hijab. If they accept the guidance, then that is all, but if they insist to defy the hijab, they will be fined. 

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One of the staunch critics of the hijab bill happens to be President Ebrahim Raisi's father-in-law Ahmad Alamolhoda, the Friday prayers Imam of Mashhad. Lawmaker Jalal Rashidi Koochi quipped that Raisi should take back the hijab bill from the Majles and hand it over to Alamolhoda for further review before giving it back to the parliament. 

Koochi charged that "the bill in its current form is all about arresting and fining women. If Alamolhoda wishes to make any change in the bill, he should not criticize the parliament as he did. He should instead address his complaints to his son-in-law Raisi." Alamolhoda had earlier called on the Majles not to ratify the bill as it will promote lack of hijab.

Koochi however criticized the bill for lacking any provision that would encourage women to observe the hijab. "The bill is mainly about if you do this, you have to pay this amount," Kooch said. 

During the past week, many conservatives and hardliners harshly criticized the bill. The hardline editor of Kayhan daily Hossein Shariatmadari said "It is funny that the police is only allowed to send text messages to women telling them that they have been seen without headscarf. This bill cannot enforce the hijab."

Former Deputy Judiciary Chief Mohammad Javad Larijani said: "If someone sees a naked woman standing behind the window, he should have the right to call the police." Meanwhile, responding to Iranian politicians who have called for holding a referendum about hijab, Larijani said that this will violate the Constitution of the Islamic Republic. 

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Lawmaker Mohammad-Taghi Naghdali, the secretary of the parliament's legal committee, in a video that quickly went viral suggested harsh punishments including lashes and deprivation from social rights as well as heavy fines for women who refuse to wear the compulsory hijab. 

Calls for harsher punishments than what is called for in the hijab bill continue by seminary clerics, Friday Prayer Imams and other hardliners in various parts of the country, while the number of women defying hijab has been on the rise in the streets during the past 8 months since the start of Women, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, despite the official ban on the entry of hijabless women to academic centers and administrative buildings and even subway stations. 

Speaking at an ambassadorial meeting, Ahmad Vahidi said: “The enemy has created an unrealistic image of Iran in the minds of people in all parts of the world using its mainstream media.”

In spite of the deaths of around 750 civilians and arrest of 30,000 more, he claimed that in protests following the death in morality police custody of Mahsa Amini, the police and security forces 'exercised restraint', blatantly denying the brutal crackdowns which have been wrought across the country.

The Human Rights Council decided to establish an independent international fact-finding mission on Iran's deadly repression of protests in October, after unrest broke out in September. 

The UN mission in particular asked for information concerning violent crackdown on peaceful protests by security forces, including alleged arbitrary arrests and detentions, sexual and gender-based violence, excessive use of force, torture and other inhumane treatment and enforced disappearances, as well as the deaths of hundreds of peaceful protesters and thousands of arrests.

The mission is also seeking documentation on physical, psychological and sexual abuse of women and girls for exercising their human rights and fundamental freedoms, and children’s rights violations in relation to the protests, including in raids on schools, and the incarceration of children in ‘psychological centers.'

Regime security and intelligence forces have framed Fazel and Mehran Bahramian for the murder of an IRGC Basij militia gunman during anti-government protests in the city last December.

The two were arrested in January after the government killed their brother Morad in November. Their detention was apparently aimed to silencing the family. Now they are being accused of killing the Basij member, Mohsen Rezaei, and face charges that could result in the death penalty.

The streets of Semirom witnessed a surge of protests on December 31. Security and military forces were heavily deployed throughout the city at the time. The paramilitary Basij force member, Mohsen Rezaei, allegedly died in clashes.

Hundreds of special police forces were deployed to Samirom starting January 1.

Several people, including Abbasi's sister and Bahramian's two brothers, were arrested during raids on the victims' families.

A source told IranWire that Fazel and Mehran Bahramian, a relative named Younes Bahramian, and another man named Dariush Saadi were tortured to extract confessions on the alleged murder of the Basij militiaman.