Iran Pressures Families Of Slain Protesters To Forgive Perpetrators

Numerous hijab officers can be seen crowded into a subway passageway in Tehran's Enghelab station, according to social media images posted Friday. The situation has been described as the "horror tunnel" for women.

The Tehran newspaper Farhikhtegan verified the increased presence of hijab enforcers on Thursday in other busy metro stations.

The newspaper highlighted that the Security Police (FARAJA) was assisting the hijab enforcers by using their cameras to spot and identify women without headscarves.

“There is an increase of FARAJA forces in the subway stations, especially in front of the ticket gates and next to the hijab guards, and when you leave the gate, a young man with a small camera will appear in front of you to take your picture,” Farhikhtegan wrote.

Over the past week, reports on social media have increased about the government's more aggressive attempts to impose and monitor hijab in the subway.

"Recording images of passersby violates people's right to privacy," added Farhikhtegan in its article.

The hijab officers in the subways have become extremely strict after Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, 22, died in hijab police custody in September 2022, sparking the "Women, Life, Freedom" protests.

In May, Tehran mayor Alireza Zakani announced that the city has implemented a uniformed security unit to prevent women from entering the metro ticket gates unveiled.

There was also a report in August that Tehran municipality would send 400 personnel to enforce hijab laws at subway stations in the capital.

The increased presence of hijab police also evokes the memory of Armita Geravand, 16, who in October died after an encounter with Tehran's hijab police.

Informed sources in the Kurdistan region of Iraq told Iran International's reporter that Rahmati was targeted in front of his house in Erbil by a three-member armed team, and he was hit by two bullets. The security forces of the Kurdistan region of Iraq have not yet been able to arrest the attackers and are investigating the incident.

Rahmati has represented several families in recent years whose members were victims of assassinations orchestrated by agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Kurdistan Region.

According to information received by Iran International in previous years, he had been responsible for handling the case of Qadir Qadiri, a senior member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran, who was assassinated in a village in Sulaymaniyah province by three agents of the Islamic Republic in March 2018.

In an exclusive interview with Iran International in 2020, Rahmati said, "Those accused of Qadiri's assassination have confessed that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard planned the assassination and promised to pay them."

The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran condemned the malicious intent towards the life of this lawyer in a statement and announced that Sohrab Rahmati had been responsible for important cases.

The Democratic Party also emphasized that this lawyer has been repeatedly targeted for assassination by the Islamic Republic. In the past 11 months alone, three members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran have been assassinated in the Kurdistan region of Iraq by the Islamic Republic.

Families of victims and ordinary people mark the 4th anniversary of the killing of at least 1,500 mostly young protesters in less than five days in November 2019.

Photos of fallen protesters are circulating widely on social media, with users posting collages of hundreds of images of young men and women who lost their lives in one of Iran's bloodiest crackdowns on dissent under the Islamic rule.

Days of intense nationwide protests, triggered by a sudden government decision to raise fuel prices, started on November 14, 2019, and marked the beginning of prolonged periods of dissent. What made the people angry was not simply a price rise. It was the painful humiliation they felt as the government did not bother to let them know in advance about the hike. In addition, when the media reported about a possible price rise, government officials denied any such plans.

The announcement came at midnight, presumably to minimize public shock. However, the morning revealed an even greater shock, as prices had tripled overnight. Iranians, anticipating a ripple effect on other prices, took to the streets in unprecedented numbers.

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As many, including Iranian journalist Shahed Alvai have observed, "the crackdown was even more unprecedented. Protests took place in 104 Iranian cities in 29 provinces, and they were quickly turned into a massive anti-regime movement. Protesters ruled out reconciliation with the government and took to the streets in a scale that terrified the government."

The Revolutionary Guard’s paramilitary forces, the Basij, that was deployed to suppress the demonstrations labeled the 2019 protests as "An all-out war against the regime and the Islamic revolution." The regime's response was ruthless massacre, a method it continued to employ in subsequent nationwide protests, including those sparked by public anger with the Morality Police, after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her arrest for “improper hijab” in September 2022.

During the 2019 protests in the month of Aban on the Iranian calendar (October 22 to November 21), protesters, for the first time, chanted slogans against the entire regime: "We do not want the reformists and conservatives. That is all over!" They were referring to two insider factions ruling Iran for three decades. The government recognized the severity of the threat, leading to a violent crackdown on dissent, and in the words of Iranian dissidents, "Aban continued."

Four years later, references to Aban are abundant. People are still remembering and mourning the fallen protesters who were often shot at point blank range as documented by International human rights organizations. The victims' families are still being harassed by security forces and sometimes imprisoned for several years.

In subsequent protests, the government, mindful of the international backlash to the large number of protester deaths, took pride in claiming fewer casualties in 2022. However, shotguns replaced rifles, resulting in many being wounded or blinded, and a higher number ended up in jail.

What the ruling elite did not learn was addressing the root cause of dissent: Deteriorating economic conditions in 2019 and serious political issues including demands for civil liberties and respect for human rights in 2022. Only after the nationwide protests in 2022 did government officials express a willingness to engage in dialogue with the people. However, once the streets calmed, they abandoned the call for reconciliation, adopting a rude and humiliating tone toward Iranians, particularly women, teachers, university professors, workers, and pensioners, on a daily basis.

Reformist commentator Abbas Abdi reminded the government in a commentary in Etemad newspaper that, during the 2022 protests, they used to be humble and call for dialogue with protesters. However, as soon as they believed the protests were behind them, they returned to their factory settings, speaking arrogantly.

According to Abdi, authorities interviewed 66 scholars, including himself, to understand the events and reasons behind the protests. However, he criticized the government's reluctance, stating, “As far as they are concerned, there was a security problem, and the security forces sorted it out." Abdi acknowledged that "The way the government is handling last year's protests has not changed."

Despite government assertions, numerous social media posts by political activists, often writing under an alias, insist that the Bloody Aban is not over. As Alavi pointed out, "The names, memories, and pictures of Aban 2019 live on as family members of fallen protesters keep them alive. Eyewitnesses are in prisons, and family members have not stopped seeking justice." Mahboubeh Ramezani, the mother of Pejman Gholipour, one of the young men killed in November 2019, has told the government: "You know that Aban has destroyed you and that Aban still goes on."

In a joint statement, accompanied by the hashtag "November Continues,” they expressed their determination on social media, declaring “We, as families seeking justice, announce that, at the risk of our lives, we will continue the path of November against the Islamic Republic."

The 2019 protests, often referred to as Bloody November, initially erupted due to a significant increase in fuel prices, quickly transforming into demands for government overthrow and opposition to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

According to a rights group report, the Islamic Republic security forces allegedly killed at least 3,000 protesters from November 15 to 17, with nearly 20,000 arrests. Reuters, at the time, reported 1,500 deaths.

Recent reports from rights groups also shed light on the aftermath of protests sparked by the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in custody, indicating that over 500 people, including minors, lost their lives, thousands were injured, and 22,000 were arrested. 

The Islamic Republic's response to the protests has included several death sentences for demonstrators, with seven of them already executed.

The Iranian judiciary claims the verdicts were issued by a fair trial, but details were not disclosed. The government often restricts defendants from choosing their legal representation, and due process is frequently absent in similar cases.

The controversial legislation, a clause of Article 75 of the Seventh Development Plan, mandates the Ministry of Islamic Guidance to launch a database consisting of information collected from online activities of individuals for "continuous monitoring and evaluation of cultural indicators, people’s lifestyles, media influence, and communications."

The legislation also requires government agencies and all domestic websites and platforms, including online businesses, to continuously feed their user information to the database.

Media and individuals on social media have extensively criticized the legislation that the parliament approved on November 8 but has yet to be endorsed by the constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council.

Detractors, including legal experts, express concerns over the lack of assurance regarding the safety of individuals' sensitive personal information, despite a reference to Article 25 of the Iranian Constitution in the legislation. Article 25 explicitly prohibits the government from engaging in spying on citizens' private communications, “unless when required by law.”

Critics argue that this provision would empower any judge to override individuals' right to privacy whenever authorities, including security forces, decide to obtain private information and data derived from an individual's online activities across various platforms. This encompasses information related to travel and transportation, as well as online searches and downloads.

An earlier version of the proposed legislation explicitly outlined that the collected data would be utilized by authorities to "consolidate the Islamic-Iranian lifestyle," aiming to ensure that people's lifestyles align with the perceived Islamic standards of the regime.

In an interview with Ham-Mihan newspaper, Ali Yazdikhah, the deputy chairman of the parliament’s cultural committee, insisted that only "macro-data" would be stored in the database, emphasizing that it would not include information on individual citizens' lives and lifestyles. However, he acknowledged that data inputted into the system, such as individuals' interests or participation in religious ceremonies like Ashura, could be utilized to assess the general interest "in [Islamic] values and sanctities."

Several critics, including lawmaker Moeeneddin Saeedi, who opposes the bill, argue that the more the state engages in cultural engineering, the greater resistance it will encounter from the public. Saeedi stated, "Experience has proven that we have failed to advance indicators of culture with these [engineering] methods," he said during the debate on the parliament floor.

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As an example, Saeedi pointed out that the current year's budget law stipulates that mosques conducting prayer congregations twice daily should receive financial incentives. However, he contended that the effectiveness of such measures in encouraging regular prayer is questionable, as over 75 percent of mosques in the country remain inactive due to insufficient attendance, despite the authorities' efforts to revitalize them.

Renowned journalist and social researcher Abbas Abdi told Ham-Mihan newspaper that the gathering of data for social research, if indeed the intended purpose of launching a database, is not inherently new or objectionable. However, he argued that government agencies lack the competence to carry out reliable research projects, and they are neither genuinely interested in nor adequately prepared to discover people's preferences or to publish research results to public.

He highlighted that authorities routinely withhold statistics on sensitive topics, including relationships between men and women, alcohol consumption, addiction, birth rates, age of marriage, and suicide.

“Suppose that they conduct research [based on the data available in the database] about dress code [=hijab], … They can’t publish the results because they are afraid people’s views and beliefs [will be known],” he said.

“However, if they intend to monitor people’s private lives and gather personal information, this would only be for the purpose of controlling and intimidating the public,” he added.