Iran's Security Forces Raped, Tortured Protest Detainees: HRW Report

Security forces of the Islamic Republic raped, tortured, and sexually assaulted detainees while repressing widespread protests in 2022 and 2023, the Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

It has investigated abuses against ten detained individuals from Kurdish, Baluch, and Azeri minority regions, spanning September to November 2022. 

Detainees reported instances of rape perpetrated by security forces, with some stating they witnessed security personnel raping other detainees. 

Furthermore, seven of the cases revealed that detainees were subjected to torture by security forces to extract confessions.

"Iranian security forces' brutality against detained protesters, including rape and torture, are not only egregious crimes, but a weapon of injustice wielded against detainees to coerce them into false confessions," said Nahid Naghshbandi, acting Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch. 

"These methods are also a twisted and despicable means of further stigmatizing and repressing marginalized ethnic minorities," she added. 

A Kurdish woman recounted to Human Rights Watch that in November 2022, two men from the security forces raped her while a female agent held her down and facilitated the assault.

In September 2022, a 24-year-old Kurdish man from West Azerbaijan province reported severe torture and rape with a baton by intelligence agency forces at a clandestine detention center.

Similarly, a 30-year-old man from East Azerbaijan province described being blindfolded, beaten alongside other protesters, and subjected to gang rape with another man by security forces in a van in October 2022.

Mahsa Amini, 22, died in Tehran in September 2022 while in police custody, three days after she was arrested for an alleged hijab infraction. 

Her death triggered protests that spread across the country and rapidly escalated into calls for the overthrow of the four-decade-old Islamic theocracy in Iran.

Authorities responded with a brutal crackdown on the protests, in which more than 500 people were killed, and over 22,000 others were unlawfully detained, including dozens of lawyers.