Human Rights Watch report on the repression of protests in Iran in 2019

Human Rights Watch reported in its annual report that the crackdown on protests in Iran has intensified in the past year. The human rights organization attributes the protests in Iran to the dire economic situation, widespread corruption, and lack of political and social freedoms.

Human Rights Watch announced in its annual report that the Islamic Republic authorities have intensified the widespread arrests of protesters and the use of violence to suppress protests across Iran in the past year (2019).

According to this report, the protests of the Iranian people are due to the worsening economic situation, the public belief in widespread corruption, and the lack of political and social freedoms.

In the 652-page annual report by Human Rights Watch, which addresses the state of human rights in the world in 2019, the level of observance of these rights in nearly 100 countries is examined.

In its Iran section, the human rights organization said that the Islamic Republic’s judiciary has sharply increased the cost of peaceful dissent in 2019, sentencing dozens of human rights activists to long prison terms. In one of the bloodiest crackdowns since the 1979 revolution, Iranian authorities responded to widespread protests following a sudden increase in fuel prices in November 2019 by targeting protesters who posed no threat to life.

“Iran’s leaders have responded to widespread dissatisfaction with their corrupt and oppressive rule by suppressing and silencing all domestic dissent lest it threaten their power,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. The use of deadly violence against protesters demonstrates “complete disregard” by the Islamic Republic’s authorities for the impact of the dire economic situation on Iranian citizens, Page said.

Exploiting the killing of Qassem Soleimani for repression

Referring to the killing of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC's Quds Force, in a drone strike by American forces in Iraq, Human Rights Watch has emphasized that, in addition to its serious regional and international consequences, the Islamic Republic is exploiting this incident to suppress its opponents, especially in the areas of regional issues and foreign policy.

The human rights organization also pointed to the bloody suppression of the protests in Iran last November, emphasizing that the Islamic Republic has refused to announce the number of deaths and arrests. According to Amnesty International, at least 304 people have been killed during these protests. Reuters has put the number of victims at around 1,500. A member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly has also reported that around 7,000 have been arrested during the protests. According to Human Rights Watch, detainees face the risk of ill-treatment and torture in Iranian prisons.

The organization said US sanctions, which have made it difficult for Iranians to access vital medicines and pose a serious threat to their health, have also been ineffective in providing “humanitarian exemptions” to sanctions, leading to widespread medical shortages, from the lack of vital medicines for epilepsy patients to restrictions on chemotherapy drugs for cancer patients.

Long prison sentences against civil society activists

The report states that revolutionary courts in Iran have sentenced dozens of civil society activists to prison for their peaceful activities in 2019, including labor and civil society activists such as Sepideh Gholian, Esmaeil Bakhshi, and Marzieh Amiri, as well as human rights lawyers such as Nasrin Sotoudeh. Also, in July and August, a branch of the Revolutionary Court sentenced four women (Yaseman Ariani, her mother Monireh Arabshahi, Mojgan Keshavarz, and Saba Kordafshari) who challenged the mandatory hijab law to prison terms of more than ten years.

Human Rights Watch has also emphasized that the Islamic Republic's authorities are arresting dual-national Iranians and foreign nationals on vague charges of "acting against national security," while at the same time exploiting them to achieve their political goals in negotiations with Western countries.

The human rights organization also noted in its annual report the long prison sentences handed down to environmental activists in Iran, writing that in November 2019, a lower court sentenced eight environmental experts who had been detained for more than two years on charges of “collaborating with the hostile US government” to prison terms ranging from four to 10 years. It also noted that on February 8, 2018, Kavous Seyed-Emami, an Iranian-Canadian university professor who had been arrested with the group, died in custody under suspicious circumstances.

The report put the number of people executed in Iran as of November 1 last year at at least 227, adding that two of these people were sentenced to death for crimes they committed before reaching the age of majority. Iran had executed 253 people during the same period in 2018.

While pointing out discrimination against women "in law and practice," the report stated that despite this, the Guardian Council finally approved an amendment to Iran's citizenship law on October 2nd, which allows Iranian women married to foreign men to apply for Iranian citizenship if there are no "security concerns" for their children under 18.

The report also emphasizes that the Islamic Republic allows girls to marry from the age of 13 and boys from the age of 15, and even at younger ages if the court approves, and emphasizes that the Judicial Commission of the Islamic Consultative Assembly has blocked efforts to increase the minimum age of marriage.

In its annual report, Human Rights Watch also pointed out numerous obstacles that children with disabilities in Iran face in the field of education.

Source: DW