Iranians Hold Rallies In Honor Of Executed Protester

There are reports of fires in military barracks and bases of Basij paramilitary forces across Iran apparently as acts of arson by antigovernment protesters. 

Videos published on social networks Saturday show a massive fire in one of the major Basij bases in the city of Ahvaz, located in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, called ‘Imam Hussein base’.

The base is one of the main centers to organize security forces and dispatch them to nearby cities to quell the ongoing protests, ignited by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in mid-September. 

There are also reports of similar incidents in several Basij bases in different cities, including a massive fire in the Basij base of Razvanshahr in the northern Gilan province and the burning of a Basij base in the religious city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran. 

In the footage of the fire at the Basij base in Mashhad, someone describes the fire as a protest against the execution of Mohsen Shekari, a young protester hanged for injuring a security guard with a knife and closing off a street in the capital Tehran. 

Another fire burned down the basij base of Tehran’s Sharif University on Friday night. An official working at the base, Abolfazl Hajizadeh, told reporters that two people entered the university in the middle of the night and set the base on fire with two bottles containing an inflammable substance. 

Setting fire to basij bases, where repression agents are normally stationed, and the seminaries of cities and state buildings have become a recurring phenomenon during the past three months. Mosques and basij bases in several cities such as Gorgan, Orumiyeh (Urmia), Kazerun, and Zanjan were set on fire by the protesters since the current wave of protests began. 

In November, the ancestral home of the Islamic Republic’s founder Ruhollah Khomeini in the city of Khomein in the western Markazi province was also set ablaze with crowds of jubilant protesters marching past. 

The execution of Mohsen Shekari, as the first protester who was hanged, has fueled more protests in Iran and led to worldwide condemnations by governments and public personalities. The United States, Canada, Australia, and the European Union imposed additional sanctions or are considering punitive measures against the Islamic Republic. Many people have described Mohsen Shekari as the most significant name in the revolt against the regime, second only to Mahsa Amini. 

Most Iranians and foreign officials have described his execution as a futile attempt by the Islamic Republic to intimidate the people not to participate in further protests, but the propaganda stunt seems to have backfired as it has made people more determined. Many Iranians say they are now certain that if they stop the protests and strikes, more people will be killed by the regime. 

The protesters at universities demanded the release of imprisoned students, lifting of harassment against others and slammed the execution of the 23-year-old protester Mohsen Shekari.

In Tehran’s Beheshti University they held a protest rally in silence amid the strong presence of plainclothes regime agents and security forces.

Reports from Allameh University in Tehran say over 100 students have been banned from entering the campus after they called for a protest over the suspicious death of their colleague, Shahabuddin Hashemi.

The hanged body of Shahabuddin Hashemi was found in the dormitory of Allameh University on Thursday, but state media claimed he committed suicide as a result of his mental problems.

However, his brother, Mehdi Hashemi denied the claims on social media as “dirty lies”, saying his brother's “suspicious murder” is reported as a “fake suicide by legal authorities.”

In western city of Sanandaj, security forces attacked protesting students at a technical college while the female students were setting fire to the Islamic Republic’s flag.

Security forces have repeatedly raided campuses and faced off with student protesters. Over 140 universities have been the scene of anti-regime protests nationwide and nearly 600 students have been detained as of Thursday, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).

Amnesty said it had identified 13 cases in which security forces had “subjected them to coercion including arbitrary arrest and detention” or had made “ threats to bury the bodies of their loved ones in [an] unidentified location.” There had also been “been threats to kill, rape, detain or otherwise harm bereaved parents and their surviving children.”

Forty-four under-18s – children and teenagers had been killed either as protestors or bystanders, the group said Friday. This was 14 percent of a total 300 deaths Amnesty refers to, a figure that appeared not to include the 61 dead members of security forces or state employees given by Norway-based group HRANA this week. HRANA put the number of dead protestors at 475.

Of the 44 under-18s killed, said Amnesty 18 were Baluchi, of which 13 were killed on September 30 in Zahedan, when violence broke out around a Sunni mosque. Ten of the under 18s were Kurds. Over half therefore – 60 percent – were from the most restive parts of Iran, where non-Persians are also part of the minority Sunni sect. The other 16 were killed in six provinces elsewhere in Iran.

Amnesty quoted a relative of a young person killed in Sistan-Baluchistan province saying the testimonies of witnesses were deemed “worthless” as Baluchis were not considered human. In nine cases of under-18s killed in Sistan-Baluchistan, Iran has told the United National Human Rights Council there was no record of their deaths.

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Victims overwhelmingly male

The 44 under-18 victims verified by Amnesty were overwhelmingly (39) male, with the youngest aged two. Of the five females, one was 17, three 16, and one aged six. Thirty-four were shot with live ammunition, four killed by metal pellets, “five died from injuries consistent with fatal beatings, and one girl was killed after being struck on the head with a tear gas canister.”

Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said a UN fact-finding mission on authorities’ actions during the protests, set up in November, should lead “all states to exercise universal jurisdiction to criminally investigate Iranian officials involved in militarized attacks on demonstrators, including children.”

Javaid Rahman, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, has also called for the application of universal jurisdiction against individuals by both national and international courts. But there is widespread international skepticism of the UN probe, partly due to its main sponsor the US having a long history of opposition to international jurisdiction, and little expectation it will lead to judicial proceedings.

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Immunity to prosecution?

While Washington had levied further sanctions on Iran over ‘human rights,’ it has long refused to join the International Criminal Court. The Biden administration recently told a US court that Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, believed by US intelligence to have ordered the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, is “immune from prosecution” as Saudi prime minister.

Twitter posts Friday alleged attendance was restricted at the funeral of a 23-year-old man hanged in Iran the previous day after conviction in a Revolutionary Court over a knife attack on a member of a Basji security group. Social media also carried footage said to be people in the man’s neighborhood chanting they would “kill the one who killed out brother” and threatening the death of Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader.

Activists reported on Saturday that Mohammad Mehdi Karami, who is sentenced to death for the alleged murder of a pro-regime Basij member during a protest on November 3, has told his family about his “severe physical and mental abuse by government agents.”

According to him, “he was beaten so hard [during arrest] that he lost consciousness and security forces thought he was dead and threw his body near a courthouse but as they were leaving, they realized he was still alive.”

Karami further told the family that regime agents sexually harassed him during detention and “threatened to rape him while touching his genitals.”

Karami along with a few others is accused of murdering a Basij security agent named Ruhollah Ajamian, who was sent to Karaj, near Tehran to confront protesters. Karami has been accused of “corruption on earth,” a serious crime under Iran’s Islamic laws, which carries the death sentence.

This is not the first report of regime’s torture and abuse of detained protestors.

Family members of another protester say their 22-year-old son, Shadman Ahmadi, has died in prison after being tortured for hours following his detention during a protest in the western city of Dehgolan in Kordestan province.

The France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network quoted his family as saying that Shadman was killed on December 8 as the result of torture during detention.

A Telegram channel affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in Kurdistan has implicitly confirmed Shadmani’s arrest on charges of “destroying public property, intimidation and disrupting public order” during the popular protests in Dehgolan.

The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said December 6 that there have been many reports of detained university students being tortured and sexually abused while in state custody.

“Many cases of sexual assaults against individuals in Iranian custody have gone unreported, due to fears of further retaliation by Islamic Republic forces,” added CHRI.

CHRI identified some university students, who have been abused and detained for long periods without access to legal counsel.

Soha Mortezei, a former Tehran University female student, who has been repeatedly arrested for engaging in peaceful activism, was physically and sexually assaulted while being transferred to Evin prison after being arrested, reports CHRI.

“Officers tied Soha’s right hand to the top of one seat and her right leg to the top of another seat while suspended, she was beaten and sexually abused by a female officer,” reported the University Students Trade Unions Council on November 27. “When she complained, she was injured with punches to the leg and stomach.”

Melika Gharegozlou, is another female student arrested on October 2 who was taken to a psychiatric hospital where she was tortured, added CHRI.

Earlier a Kurdish-Iranian woman told CNN she both witnessed and suffered sexual violence while detained. “There were girls who were sexually assaulted and then transferred to other cities,” she said. “They are scared to talk about these things.”

Thousands of unidentified inmates are tortured in Iran’s prisons. Some have been condemned to death or charged with heavy sentences, without having access to a lawyer. Many others are also tortured to make false confessions. Under such circumstances, Iran Human Rights Monitor in its 2022 annual report said only 25 cases of detainees’ death under torture have been recorded while the true figure might be much higher.

On Saturday thousands of Iranian diasporas across the world chanted slogans against the clerical regime condemning the illegal treatment of detained protesters and the execution of the first protester Mohsen Shekari.

Coinciding with the International Human Rights Day, the protests were held in dozens of countries around the world including Hungary, Denmark, Japan, Australia, Itay, Turkey, Belgium, and Germany.

Following the execution of the 23-year-old protester Mohsen Shekari on Thursday, several public figures and organizations called on Iranians abroad to hold protest gatherings.

In Tokyo and Sydney, Iranians took to streets to show anger at the brutal hanging of Mohsen Shekari by the Islamic regime.

In the city of Rome, a group of Iranians chanted "Women, Life, Freedom" while holding a sit-in at the Embassy of the Islamic Republic in Italy. They called on Italian politicians to severe diplomatic ties with the Iranian government.
Similar events were held in Torino, Geneva, Istanbul, Brussels, Perth, Copenhagen, and Berlin.

Friday night, a group of Iranians living in New York also held a protest rally in front the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic to the United Nations.