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A 14-year-old girl is being held in an adult prison with drug offenders. A 16-year-old boy has had his nose broken in custody after being beaten by security personnel. A 13-year-old girl was physically attacked by plainclothes militiamen who raided her school.
Iranian authorities’ brutal crackdown on protests calling for social freedom and political change that have gripped the country for the past two months has taken a horrific toll on the country’s youth, according to Iranian lawyers and rights activists familiar with the case.
Young people, including teenage boys and girls, have been at the center of demonstrations and clashes with security forces on the streets, on university campuses and in secondary schools. Iranian officials said the average age of the protesters was 15.
Some have been beaten and detained, others have been shot in the street or beaten while in security custody, and countless others have had their lives disrupted by authorities raiding schools to crack down on dissent.
Authorities have targeted thousands of minors under the age of 18 taking part in the protests, according to interviews with more than two dozen people, including Iranian lawyers and activists involved in the case, as well as parents, relatives and teenagers living in the country. Rights groups say at least 50 minors were killed.
🎙️ People #Iran Beaten, raped and killed in the streets and in prisons, not by criminals but by those who claim to be the government of this wonderful country.
I am asking for a debate in 🇪🇺 Parliament to take a very strong stand to support and unite the protesters. pic.twitter.com/Ohl9JNMncf
— Hannah Neumann (@HNeumannMEP) November 10, 2022
The lawyer and many of the people interviewed for this article asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation.
The campaign against young people has led to 14,000 arrests amid a broader crackdown on protesters, according to the United Nations. On Sunday, state media said an unidentified person had been sentenced to death for setting fire to a government building.
But rights groups say the Islamic Republic is lashing out at its youth in a style and scale not seen in other protests that have rocked the country over the past two decades. The nationwide uprising is led mostly by women, with daily protests in cities across the country calling for an end to violence by hardline clerics following the death in custody of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini. The morality police who rule September.
Kazem Gharibabadi, secretary-general of Iran’s High Commission for Human Rights, did not respond to questions about the government’s actions against young protesters.
Breaking: UN Human Rights Council holds emergency meeting for first time in history #Iran. We demanded an international commission of inquiry and formally called for the expulsion of the Islamic Republic from the United Nations’ top women’s rights body. pic.twitter.com/ZCaybhEl5z
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) November 13, 2022
The anger and determination of this generation appeared to have caught the country’s rulers off guard, with senior officials acknowledging that the government and young people – tech-savvy and social media users – “don’t understand each other’s language”, Ezzatollah Zarghami, minister of cultural heritage, said in a statement to the media. Said in the speech of the university students.
The government has used the same tactics against youth rebellion as it has against adults: shooting and killing some; arresting others and putting them in cells shared with adult prisoners; interrogating and threats to children and their families.
A 14-year-old girl detained with drug offenders has gone missing after taking part in protests in the religious city of Qom, showing off her hair in defiance of Iran’s mandatory hijab. She was released on bail and told she now has a criminal file and must stand trial. The 16-year-old boy, whose nose was broken, marched in the northwestern city of Tabriz, with crowds chanting “death to the dictator”.
“What is different about these protests is the more visible presence of children, who have shown a bold determination to stand up to those in power and fight for a better future for themselves,” said Diane Eyre, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa. Diana Eltahawy said. “They are using every tool of repression at their disposal to suppress them.”
Iran-Nov15: Protests erupt in Tehran’s Grand Bazar. People chanted “shameless”. The slogans are usually aimed at the security forces. Today marks the first day of a 3-day period of protests + strikes to mark the bloody November 2019 crackdown. #Mehsa_Amini pic.twitter.com/Uy8WRScrSm
— Khosro Kalbasi Isfahani (@KhosroKalbasi) November 15, 2022
Amnesty International said it had documented 33 cases of minors killed in the uprising, but the real number was likely higher. Iran-focused rights groups and teachers’ associations said the number was closer to 50.
The United Nations said last week that 14,000 people had been arrested in Iran in the past eight weeks. Lawyers and rights advocates estimated between 500 and 1,000 minors were currently in detention. It was unclear how many were being held in adult prisons. How many are held in juvenile prisons. detention facility.
In juvenile detention centers, children are forced to undergo behavioral therapy under the supervision of clergy and psychologists, who tell them they have committed a crime and must accept their wrongdoing, according to lawyers and activists. In some cases, the children were prescribed psychiatric medications after resisting behavioral treatment, the lawyer said.
In an audio message shared with New York Times Hossein Raeesi, a prominent Iranian human rights lawyer, said the government had issued a classified order requiring that all cases involving children “must be handled by security and intelligence experts”. “The children’s condition is very serious and cases are slowly emerging,” the official added.
Actors and athletes from Iran are the latest high-profile figures to speak out in support of the anti-government protest movement that began after Mahsa Amini’s death on Sept. 16 https://t.co/Ghl4BBdm8L pic.twitter.com/iMONi4wIEf
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 11, 2022
Iranian law stipulates that minors can only be held in juvenile detention centers and interrogated by specially trained judges assigned to juvenile courts, Raeesi said.
Iran is also a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and its targeting and treatment of children violates its obligations, Raeesi said.
In the Kurdish city of Kamiyaran, a 16-year-old boy named Mobin was arrested and arrested, according to Rebin Rahmani, director of the Kurdistan Human Rights Network. He was taken to prison, where he was beaten and suffered a broken shoulder. Rahmani said when the boy was taken to hospital for X-rays, doctors who planned to admit him were overruled by security forces and he was again Return to detention facility.
Schools, often thought of as refuges for children, have suddenly become battlefields, with students at risk simply by going to class.
In Tehran, Iran, a police motorcycle is set ablaze during protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the Islamic Republic’s “morality police”. (WANA via Reuters/file photo)
era Twenty-three raids were documented on high schools in Iranian cities, where plainclothes militia and intelligence agents interrogated, beat and searched students, or where school authorities threatened or attacked students.
In one incident, a Tehran elementary school was attacked last month when security forces hurled tear gas into the school yard during recess as students shouted, according to a parent whose third-grade son attends the school. Anti-government slogans.
“My children are not safe on the street, nor are they safe at school. Every day I die of anxiety until they come home,” said Sara, a 50-year-old mother of two teenage girls in Tehran, who asked Do not reveal your last name. Last week, the school called to inform her that plainclothes Basij militiamen planned to raid the school and demanded the use of students’ mobile phones. Sarah has not sent her daughters to school for two days.
Her 17-year-old daughter, a senior who asked not to be named because of safety concerns, said she felt “empowered” as she protested with her classmates every day, taking off her hijab, knocking on doors and chanting “Woman, Life, Freedom.”
In Tabriz, a 14-year-old boy named Amir showed symptoms of trauma at home after refusing to eat and becoming reclusive, his family said. He complained of headaches and an upset stomach.
Three days later, he told his uncle that his school had been raided by intelligence agents, who parked a police car in the courtyard and threatened that if the students were found tearing up the head of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei photos, and they send the students to jail. , in their textbooks or expressed support for the protests. They checked the students’ books and scanned their phones, taking screenshots of photos and social media posts.
“They told Amir, if you tell your parents, we will arrest your father,” said his uncle Ebi, a mechanical engineer who asked not to be named, in Tabriz. said in a telephone interview. “They terrorize children because they are afraid of the future and they know these children will fight for their rights.”
A mother in Shiraz said the principal of Amin Lari High School, where her 14-year-old daughter attends, called the police and the education department when students smashed a photo frame of the revolution’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and chanted slogans in the courtyard. When they raided the school, the principal allowed them to use surveillance cameras to identify students inciting protests. Sixteen people were suspended.
In one of the most high-profile school incidents, Basij militias stormed Shahed High School in the northwestern city of Ardabil last month and beat students, sending nine to hospital by ambulance. Activists said a 15-year-old girl, Asra Panahi, was beaten to death.
But her family publicly defied the government’s version that she committed suicide by swallowing pills, which rights groups said was pressured by authorities.
Yashar Hakakpour, director of the Iran-Azerbaijan Political Prisoners Defense Association, which is based in Canada, said: “Families of children who have been killed or arrested are under enormous pressure and threats not to tell the truth about the case or to reveal their names. He said he had been in touch with people close to Asra’s family and could confirm she was killed in the raid. “They think that if they scare the parents, they can also control the kids.”
Some children have gone missing during the protests and their families have been unable to locate them, according to activists and media reports. Two brothers, 16 and 17, have been missing for more than a month in the southeastern city of Zahedan, which has been the scene of a violent crackdown. Three 15-year-old girls went missing for several days in Lahijan.
“They never respected or accepted the notion that children have any rights,” said Bahram Rahimi, a founding member of Iran’s Committee for the Protection of Children’s Rights, now living in exile in California. “Even the most conservative families will be outraged by the way they target children.”
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