A United Nations fact-finding mission stated this Friday that “physical violence”suffered by the young Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini when she was in custody after being detained in Tehran for supposedly wearing the veil incorrectly was the cause of his death in September 2022, an event that unleashed large protest mobilizations in Iran.

“The mission has determined that physical violence in custody caused Amini’s death,” he said in a statement, before criticizing that “instead of investigating this death quickly, effectively and exhaustively, as required by Humanitarian Law , The Government actively hid the truth and denied justice“.

Thus, he highlighted that “the authorities mobilized the entire State security apparatus to suppress the protesters who took to the streets after Amini’s death”, protests that left nearly 551 dead, including 68 children, according to “credible sources” cited by the mission.

The subsequent repression, a crime against humanity

According to this mission, Iran committed crimes against humanity in the repression of the protests that began in September 2022 due to the death of Mahsa Amini. In this sense, he has pointed to “a unnecessary and disproportionate use of force” by Iranian forces and explained that there is “a pattern of extensive injuries to the eyes of protesters that caused blindness to many women, men and children.” “Evidence of extrajudicial executions has also been found,” has said.

“The mission confirms that there were dead and wounded agents, but the majority of “The protests were peaceful.”indicates the statement, which also denounces “a pattern of arbitrary arrests”, including people who danced, chanted slogans, painted walls, honked their car horn or posted messages on social networks.

Furthermore, he has indicated that the authorities “they tortured victims to obtain confessions or to intimidate, humiliate and punish“, including cases of women and girls “subjected to rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence, including gang rape, object rape, electrocution of genitals, forced nudity and touching.”

The mission has also emphasized that “many” people “they continue to pay a high price” for having supported the protests within the framework of the repression against relatives of the victims, journalists, activists, lawyers and doctors, before emphasizing that the authorities “encouraged, approved and supported” violations of Human Rights with their statements.

Deep-rooted discrimination

For this reason, the president of the mission, Sara Hossain, has stressed that “these acts are part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Iran, mainly women, girls, boys and men who have asked for freedom, equality, dignity and accountability.” “We ask the Government to immediately stop the repression against those who participated andn peaceful protests, particularly women and girls,” he stressed.

Along these lines, Viviana Krsticevic, a member of the mission, has elaborated that “Iran has the obligation to respect the rights of women and children and guarantee the right to truth, justice and reparation to victims”.

“Dadaist deep-rooted institutional discrimination against Iranian women and girls, They are owed transformative reparations that guarantee their full, free and equal participation in all spheres of Iranian society,” he said, before pointing out that “this would imply, among other measures, a review of the laws, a reform of the judicial system and accountability measures.