The Iranian authorities have been accused of wrongfully arresting, threatening and harassing family members of dozens of those killed, executed, or imprisoned during the nationwide protests since 2022.
In its latest report, Human Rights Watch said “two years after the outbreak of the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests, Iranian authorities continue to silence and punish family members demanding accountability for violations against their loved ones.”
Among them is Mashallah Karami, father of protester Mohammad, who was executed in January 2023. He has since been sentenced to 8 years and 10 months in prison on fake charges of “participation in money laundering” and “obtaining property through illegitimate means.” Now, he faces a fine and the confiscation of his assets as part of his sentence.
“Iranian authorities are brutalizing people twice over; executing or killing a family member and then arresting their loved ones for demanding accountability,” said Nahid Naghshbandi, acting Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“The Iran judiciary should urgently free unlawfully detained family members and ensure fair trials and a transparent judicial process for anyone accused of a crime.”
Minors have also fallen victim to the crackdown. According to Baluch human rights group Halvash, Faramarz Abil Barahoui, the 15-year-old brother of Esmaeel Abil Barahoui, a victim of the Bloody Friday crackdown on protesters in Zahedan in 2022, has been sentenced to eight months in prison. Halvash reported last year that he was arrested after he visited his brother's grave.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network also reported that on September 3, security agents raided the home of the family of Zanyar Aboubakri, who was shot and killed during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in Mahabad in October 2022, arresting his 16-year-old brother, Ramyer.
It is part of a nationwide crackdown on dissent. “Iranian authorities have a long track record of pressuring families whose loved ones were killed by security forces or executed by Iranian courts”, HRW said, including threatening and pressuring families of victims from the 2019 protests, as well as families of those killed on Flight PS752, a Ukrainian Airlines flight shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in 2020, to deter them from pursuing accountability.
The report comes while Amnesty International released information regarding the imminent execution of human rights defender Sharifeh Mohammadi. She was sentenced to death in June in relation to her peaceful human rights activities.
A campaigner for women’s and workers’ rights as well as the abolition of the death penalty, she was a member of a legal workers’ committee in Iran until 2011, when independent trade unions were banned. "Her trial was grossly unfair, and her allegations of torture and other ill-treatment were never investigated,” the rights group said.
Amnesty also noted that “in the aftermath of the Woman Life Freedom uprising, Iranian authorities have intensified their use of the death penalty to install fear among the population and tighten their grip on power …. [including] the use of the death penalty against women on politically motivated charges”.
Last year alone, Iran executed more than 850 people. Iran Human Rights reported that Iranian authorities executed 249 people in the first six months of 2024, though under the secrecy of Iran’s government, it is believed the numbers could be higher.
