The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an opposition group headquartered overseas, said on Wednesday it has received reports of sexual assault against teenage protesters taken prisoner during the regime’s brutal crackdown on demonstrations this month.
Protests erupted across Iran in late December after the economy collapsed and the value of Iranian currency evaporated. The regime responded with horrifying levels of violence under the cover of an Internet blackout, racking up almost 5,000 confirmed deaths and over 26,000 arrests. Human rights groups believe the full tally of killings could be triple the deaths confirmed so far, or even higher.
NCRI cited eyewitness reports that “several young women and men were forced to undress” after they were taken into custody by regime security forces, ostensibly “so the military could see whether they had pellet wounds.”
Numerous witnesses to the crackdown have told international media that regime thugs sprayed fire from pellet guns into the protesters, in order to “tag” them for later arrest and prosecution by giving them distinctive wounds. Iranian doctors say they have treated thousands of people for serious eye damage from pellet gun injuries.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), a group based in France, said at least two people were sexually assaulted by Iranian security forces in the city of Kermanshah. One of the victims was a 16-year-old child.
“During the transfer, security forces touched their bodies with batons. They beat and applied pressure to the anal area with a baton through the clothing,” KHRN said.
The UK Guardian noted that many detainees reported “rapes, beatings, and torture” during the crackdown on the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising in 2022, and more reports of torture during the latest crackdown are trickling through the Internet blackout that remains in effect.
A 40-year-old protester named Soran Feyzizadeh was allegedly tortured to death by the regime after he was arrested on January 7, and his family was not informed of his death for two days. The regime demanded a heavy ransom from the family to release his body, which was “barely recognizable due to the extent of injuries caused by repeated blows.”
The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran, a group based in the United States, said a disturbing number of detainees have been transferred to Iranian prisons noted for human rights abuses, including “beating, flogging, and sexual assault.”
NCRI and KHRN both confirmed that families have been charged exorbitant fees for the return of their loved ones’ remains, with prices of up to 10 billion rials (a little under $10,000 U.S. at current exchange rates.) Many of the corpses have reportedly been burned to conceal the extent of the regime’s killings.
The dissident groups also said that families have been forced to hold funerals under heavy security, and have been coerced to make public statements blaming the protesters for all of the deaths.
Opposition news service Iran International reported on Wednesday that “fragments” of the truth about the two-week crackdown are beginning to escape from the regime’s information void, including previously unreported murders, such as a shopkeeper who was executed on the spot by security forces for harboring protesters inside his business in the city of Shiraz.
Iran International added to the growing volume of reports about snipers randomly killing protesters by shooting from rooftops, and said the regime is stepping up its efforts to conceal the full extent of its brutality from the outside world, through measures such as destroying corpses, intimidating medical personnel, and forbidding funerals.
The news site also quoted horrifying stories from eyewitnesses who said some of the people stuffed in body bags and dumped at a morgue in Tehran were still breathing.
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