Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday that Iran’s security forces repressing widespread protests have unlawfully killed, tortured, sexually assaulted, and disappeared children as part of a pattern of serious violations.
The prominent global campaign group have documented government security forces “restraining, blindfolding, and torturing” children held in detention - stating children have been held by security forces who have not informed their families they were in custody, according to The Independent.
Human Rights Watch said this constitutes a “pattern of serious violations” as they warned authorities have infringed human rights while arresting, interrogating, and prosecuting children.
A secondary school student told researchers that security forces pushed her onto a lit gas range while she was being arrested, leading to her clothes being set on fire, adding she was beaten and whipped while being interrogated.
Campaigners cited another example of interrogators subjecting a different boy to torture by pushing needles under his nails, meanwhile, two children were subjected to torture in a bid to force them to disclose the location of their relatives. While a 16-year-old boy is said to have twice attempted to kill himself after being electroshocked, beaten, and sexually assaulted.
Protests exploded across Iran after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, died in police custody in mid-September last year, with women at the forefront of the protests, waving their hijabs, hurling them onto bonfires and chopping off their hair. Ms Amini was detained by the morality police for allegedly infringing Iran’s stringent rules on hijabs.
Women’s rights are profoundly restricted in Iran and wearing a headscarf is compulsory in public for all women, with those who do not wear a hijab, or have some of their hair on display while wearing a hijab, facing punishments ranging from fines to imprisonment.
Human Rights Watch warned judges have blocked children’s families from choosing their lawyers, as well as convicting children on imprecise charges and choosing not to put them on trial in the youth courts. This is despite the fact these courts are supposed to preside over all cases involving children.
Tara Sepehri Far, senior Iran researcher at the organisation, said: “Iranian leaders have unleashed their brutal security forces to sexually assault and torture children, and have not spared children from ludicrously unfair trials, The Independent reports.
“Over the past seven months, the authorities have not hesitated to extend the coercive power of the state to silence even children.”
Sepehri Far warned those children who suffered “horrific abuses in detention and at trial” could suffer “long-lasting harm” as she called for the UN's fact-finding mission to “prioritise investigating these abuses and recommend a path to accountability.”
An Iranian lawyer said he knew of 28 children charged with “enmity against God” and “corruption on earth”, which are indistinct, nebulous crimes that can be punished with amputation of the right hand and left foot or with death.
Iranian rights groups recorded the killings of 537 people by security forces during demonstrations which first rocked the country at the end of August last year in the wake of Amini’s death. At least 68 children are included in this figure, which was released at the beginning of April this year.
