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Journalism of Courage
An Iranian court has handed out the first death sentence linked to the anti-government street protests that have thrown the country into turmoil since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who was taken into custody and allegedly beaten by the morality police in September for defying Iran’s stringent hijab rules.
Iran’s judiciary said that a Revolutionary Court in Tehran has sentenced an individual to death for setting fire to a government building and for “waging war against God”, which is punishable by death in the country. According to the nonprofit Iran Human Rights, at least 20 other protesters too are facing charges that are punishable by death.
The death of Amini, an Iranian Kurdish woman, has sparked one of the biggest anti-government demonstrations in the country since the 1978-79 Islamic Revolution.
Across the country, hundreds have been killed in a violent government crackdown, and thousands have been arrested or detained.
The protests that were initially led by the women of the country, focused on ending the mandatory headscarf, rapidly spread to all of Iran’s 31 provinces, provoking a fierce crackdown by the government.
According to Iran’s Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), as many as 348 protesters have so far been killed, including 52 children. The number of detainees have neared 16,000, of which more than 450 are students.
Amnesty International has said it has documented 33 cases of minors being killed in the uprising, but the real numbers are likely higher. Iran-focused rights groups and the association for teachers say the number is closer to 50.
The United Nations has put the count of those arrested at 14,000, with rights activists estimating the number of minors in detention to be from 500 to 1,000.
Several foreign nationals, especially French intelligence agents, are reported to have been arrested, with Iranian state media accusing them of playing a major role in provoking and sustaining the protests and unrest.
A number of prominent artistes and journalists are facing charges that carry the death penalty, raising fears of more executions in the coming weeks and months.
Among the many protesters is rapper Toomaj Salehi, a prominent artiste in the country, who was arrested in October. According to the state judiciary’s Mizan news agency, Salehi had “played a key role in creating chaos and inviting and encouraging the recent disturbances in Isfahan Province and in the city of Shahinshahr”. His family alleged in a social media post that he was being subjected to the “cruellest methods of torture”.
Salehi is known for songs that highlight the growing gap between ordinary Iranians and the country’s leadership.
Two Iranian women journalists, Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, who helped make public the story of Mahsa Amini, were arrested in late September. The Iranian authorities have accused them of being “CIA agents”, and the “primary sources of news for foreign media”.
According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 45 Iranian journalists have been arrested since the protests began.
The United Nations has expressed concern about nine cases that may end in death sentences.
The UN human rights office, while pointing to the “increasing harshness” in the treatment of the protests, has urged Iran’s government to release the thousands of people who have been detained or arrested for holding peaceful protests.
Last month, the UN Human Rights Commissioner had termed reports of arbitrary arrests and the killing and detention of children as “deeply worrying”. It noted that a number of schools had been raided and students were arrested by the security forces.
The UN body also quoted Iran’s Minister of Education confirming that an unspecified number of children had been sent to “psychological centres” after they were arrested for participating in anti-state protests.
Iran has accused its enemies, the United States and Israel, of planning and guiding the protests.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has condemned the “rioting” as a foreign plot to destabilize Iran. He has also termed the extraordinary scenes of women protesters ripping off their headscarves in the street as being “not normal” and “unnatural”.
Major General Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has warned the protesters, and condemned the demonstrations as a “sinister plan hatched in the White House and by the Zionist regime”.
The European Union has imposed additional sanctions on Iran.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron has characterised the unrest as a revolution. The new EU sanctions have targeted 29 individuals and three organisations, in response to what it has condemned as Tehran’s widespread use of force against peaceful protesters.
The sanctions include travel bans on these individuals and entities, and a freeze on their assets. A ban has been imposed on exports to Iran of equipment used for internal repression and for monitoring telecommunications.
The UK too has announced a fresh round of sanctions on Iran targeting Communications Minister Issa Zarepour, cyber police chief Vahid Mohammad Naser Majid, and a number of officials of Iran’s national police force LEF, and the IRGC.
