London, December 10: Human rights violations in Iran are as bad as at any time in 20 years, London-based watchdog Amnesty International said on Thursday in a report on a government crackdown against election protests.
Amnesty said it had detailed “patterns of abuse before, during and, particularly, after the June election, when the authorities deployed the Basij militia and Revolutionary Guards to suppress mass protests against its disputed outcome.”
It called on Iranian authorities to fully investigate all allegations of abuse in custody and to prosecute any security personnel suspected of wrongdoing.
“The Iranian leadership must ensure that the many allegations of torture, including rape, unlawful killings and other abuses are fully and independently investigated,” said the deputy director of the watchdog’s Middle East and North Africa programme, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.
“Members of militias and officials who have committed violations must also be promptly held to account and on no account should any one be executed.”
Dozens of people were killed and at least 4,000 people arrested during the first wave of protests in June.
Around 140 people, including leading reformist politicians and journalists have been prosecuted in what the opposition has derided as “show trials”. The courts have handed down at least five death sentences.
Amnesty cited testimony from one detainee held at the now closed Kahrizak detention centre.
He said he was held for some 58 days in a shipping container and was only allowed to contact his family after 43 days.
“During interrogation, he was told that his son had been detained and would be raped if he did not ‘confess’ and he was then beaten with a baton until he lost consciousness,” the report said.
“He said there were more than 70 other detainees held in the container with him.”
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered Kahrizak closed in July saying it did not meet “required standards.” But authorities have denied opposition charges that several detainees who died in the centre were beaten to death.
Amnesty called on Khamenei to allow two key UN human rights experts to visit Iran to help conduct an investigation.
“The supreme leader should order the government to invite in UN special rapporteurs on torture and on summary and arbitrary executions to help ensure that investigations are both rigorous and independent,” Hadj Sahraoui said.
“To date, the investigations announced by various Iranian authorities seem to have been more concerned with covering up abuses than getting at the truth.”
—Agencies