Iran: IBAHRI condemns ongoing violent crackdown of protests, calls for accountability and an end to impunity

Thursday 13 October 2022

The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) is alarmed by, and condemns, the widely reported campaign of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention of protestors by Iran’s security forces. Accounts cite at least 185 people, including 19 minors, have been killed, hundreds injured and thousands arrested by the security forces following the death of Mahsa Amini who died while in police custody after being arrested for not wearing a headscarf in a way deemed ‘appropriate’ by Iran’s ‘morality’ police.

IBAHRI Co-Chair and Immediate Past Secretary General of the Swedish Bar Association, Anne Ramberg Dr Jur hc, commented: ‘The IBAHRI calls for prompt, independent and transparent investigations into the death of Mahsa Amini and all the protestors that have died during the ruthless crackdown in Iran following demonstrations over the death of Ms Amini while in police custody. We call for a halt to the suppression, for the morality police to be dismantled and compulsory veiling laws, which sparked the protests after their brutal enforcement, to be repealed. Once again, the rights of Iranian women are being violated wholesale. Iranian security forces have continuously shown total disregard for the sanctity of life.’

The IBAHRI suggests that an open and transparent investigation into the causes leading to the death of Amini could be conducted by the Special Rapporteurs on torture, on violence against women and girls, and on the situation of human rights in Iran.

Furthermore, the IBAHRI calls on the government in Iran to immediately stop the use of lethal force in policing peaceful assemblies, to respect individuals’ rights to exercise freedom of expression, assembly and association, and repeal all legislation and policies that discriminate on the grounds of sex and gender, in line with international standards.

Increasingly, the Iranian regime is imprisoning prominent women’s rights activists who peacefully campaign against compulsory veiling laws, including human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotudeh, as well as Mojgan Keshavarz, Yasaman Aryani, and Monireh Arabshahi. Against this backdrop, Iran’s election to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women on 20 April 2021 was ill-considered by many.

IBAHRI Co-Chair, Mark Stephens CBE, commented: ‘Iran’s ascension to the UN Commission on the Status of Women earlier this year is a testament to the surreal dissonance between what happens at the international level, and the harsh reality Iranian women and girls are facing on the ground. With four Western states having elected Iran to the top women’s rights body, the international community now has an onus in ending the culture of systematic impunity and in protecting the rights of women in Iran. A woman should not have to lose her life because she wore a piece of material on her head in a way that was not acceptable to a man.’

Since the death of Amini on 16 September 2022, protests in Iran have burgeoned from calling for an end to violence and discrimination against women in Iran, and the repealing of discriminatory laws against women, to calls for the fall of the clerical establishment. 

ENDS

For further information/interview requests, please send an email to: IBAHRI@int-bar.org