Iranian security forces raped and sexually assaulted male and female protesters as young as 12 – with six victims subjected to gang-rape by groups of up to ten

Iranian security forces raped and sexually assaulted male and female protesters as young as 12, according to a horrifying new report.

Amnesty International found that security forces used rape and sexual violence to torture, punish and traumatize protesters arrested as part of the Tehran regime’s crackdown on nationwide protests that have erupted since September 2022.

The rights group said it collected testimonies from 12 women, 26 men, one girl and six boys who were survivors of rape or other forms of sexual violence.

It’s 120 pages report details 45 cases of rape, gang rape or sexual assault against protesters, with six victims being gang raped by groups of up to ten men.

With cases occurring in more than half of Iran’s provinces, Amnesty expressed concern that these documented abuses appeared to be part of a “wider pattern.”

“Our research shows how intelligence and security agents in Iran have used rape and other forms of sexual violence to torture, punish and inflict lasting physical and psychological harm on protesters, including children as young as 12,” said Amnesty secretary-general Agnès Callamard.

The London-based organization said it shared its findings with Iranian authorities on November 24 “but has yet to receive a response.”

Protests began in Iran in September 2022 following the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Her family claims she was killed by a blow to the head, but this has always been disputed by Iranian authorities.

After angering Iran’s clerical leadership, the movement lost momentum by the end of that year amid a brutal crackdown that left hundreds of people dead, human rights activists say, and thousands arrested, according to the United Nations.

Amnesty said 16 of the 45 cases documented in the report were rapes, including six women, seven men, a 14-year-old girl and two boys aged 16 and 17. Six of them – four women and two men – were gang members. raped up to 10 male agents, the report said.

It said the sexual assaults were carried out by members of the Revolutionary Guard, the Basij paramilitary force, intelligence ministry agents, and police as the Tehran regime herded protesters into the streets.

The rapes of women and men were carried out using “wooden and metal batons, glass bottles, hoses and/or the agents’ genitals and fingers,” the report said.

In addition to the 16 rape victims, Amnesty said it documented 29 victims of other forms of sexual violence, such as beating of the breasts and genitals, forced nudity, and the insertion of needles or ice into men’s testicles.

The department said it collected evidence through interviews with victims and other witnesses conducted remotely through secure communications platforms.

“The harrowing evidence we have collected points to a broader pattern of using sexual violence as a key weapon in the arsenal of Iranian authorities to suppress protests and suppress dissent in order to cling to power at all costs,” Callamard said.

One woman, Maryam, who was arrested and detained for two months after she removed her hijab in protest, told Amnesty International that she was raped by two agents during interrogation.

“He (the investigator) called two more and told them, ‘It’s time,’” she said.

“They started tearing my clothes. I screamed and begged them to stop.

“They brutally raped me vaginally with their genitals and anally raped me with a drink bottle.

“Even animals don’t do things like that,” the group quotes her as saying.

A man named Farzad told Amnesty that a gang of plainclothes agents raped him and another male protester, Shahed, while they were in a car.

He said plainclothes agents forced him and other detainees to face the sides of a car, where they were electrocuted and then sexually assaulted.

“They pulled down my pants and raped me,” he said in his testimony.

“I couldn’t scream. I was really torn apart… I was vomiting a lot, and when I went to the toilet, I was bleeding from my rectum,” said Farzad, who was released without charge a few days later.

Another woman, Sahar, also told Amnesty how she was attacked and how the experience led her to suicide.

She said security forces removed her clothes and touched her private parts, mocking her and threatening her with rape.

“I used to be a fighter in life. Even when the Islamic Republic tried to break me, I continued,” she told the rights group. “However, lately I’ve been thinking about suicide a lot… I’m like a person who waits all day for night to sleep.”

Zahra, the woman who was raped by the agent, also described the psychological toll.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be the same person again,” she told Amnesty.

“You will not find anything that would return me to myself, that would return my soul to me… I hope that my testimony will turn out to be fair and not only for me.”

Other victims who spoke to The Guardian described similar attacks.

Mahdi Yaghoubi, 31, who was arrested in November 2022 during protests in Tehran, told the publication that security officers sexually assaulted him in order to “confess.”

They touched and squeezed my genitals to force me to confess,” he said. “They didn’t do it to embarrass me or rape me. They did this as a method of excruciating torture. They wanted me to suffer and feel pain.”

He added that the agents insulted him and other detainees, calling him a “beheirat” (a man without self-esteem) in order to humiliate and humiliate them.

Yaghoubi said he managed to escape Iran with his sister on the back of a truck.

Amnesty said most victims did not file complaints about the attack for fear of further repercussions, and those who reported it to prosecutors were ignored.

“With no prospects for justice at home, the international community has a responsibility to support survivors and seek justice,” Callamard said.