Human rights report monitors torture of protesters in Khamenei prisons
Sunday 26/January/2020 - 04:31 PM
Ali Ragab
The 38th article of Iran’s constitution clearly stipulates that all forms of torture for the purpose of extracting confession or acquiring information are forbidden, and that compulsion of individuals to testify, confess, or take an oath is not permissible; and any testimony, confession, or oath obtained under duress is devoid of value and credence.
Political prisoners and protesters in Iran are being beaten, insulted, violated and killed, despite that violation of this article is liable to punishment in accordance with the law.
Human rights organizations estimate that between 4,500 and 5,000 men, women and children were killed in the summer of 1988 in prisons across Iran. The pattern of political executions changed dramatically from piecemeal reports of executions to a massive wave of killings that took place over several months.
A report by the People's Mujahedin of Iran has said the regime of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is practicing extensive force of abuse against detainees and protesters, believing that it could stop the massive tide of the Iranian uprising.
Reports have further affirmed that that the detainees of the November 2019 protests were subjected to severe torture in the grand prison in Fashapuyeh.
The reports have stated that detainees of the national uprising in November were subjected to torture by hitting sensitive areas in their bodies, and pouring boiling water.
One of the prisoners, Hengameh Haj-Hassan, who was working as a nurse in Tehran in 1981, was arrested and thrown in prison, charged with the ‘crime’ of attending to people, mainly MEK members, who’d been injured by the Revolutionary Guards. She revealed that a friend arrested with her was executed in 1988.
She wrote a book entitled ‘Face to face with the beast: Iranian Women in mullahs' prisons’ to expose methods of torture inside the Iranian regime's prisons, saying that a prison personnel cut off one of her feet while in detention.
Shima Babai, a civil rights activist who was arrested by IRGC officials in a raid at her father’s house on May 25, 2016., said she was afraid to sleep in her cell because she was afraid guards would sexually abuse her.
She also added that she was kept in a solitary prison for weeks in a prison that looked like a “grave” and is being guarded by the IRGC. She was subjected to continuous verbal abuses and threats by investigators.
Video footage verified by Amnesty International, backed up by witness testimony, showed Iranian security forces opening fire on unarmed protesters who did not pose any imminent risk.
According to Amnesty, the majority of the deaths that the organization has recorded occurred as a result of gunshots to the head, heart, neck and other vital organs, indicating that the security forces were shooting to kill.
The UN has stated that it has information suggesting that at least 12 children were among those killed. According to Amnesty International’s research, they include a15-year-old who was shot in the heart in Shiraz, Fars province, and another 17-year-old who was killed in Shahriar, Tehran.
The international human rights organization has warned that arrested protesters are not only beaten, but many are unable to communicate with their families, or to have a lawyer to defend them.
It also urged the international community to take urgent action, including through UN Human Rights Council holding a special session on Iran to mandate an inquiry into the unlawful killings of protesters, horriyfing wave of arrests, enforced disappearances and torture of detainees, with a view to ensuring accountability.
