Year 2019 was marked by brutal clampdown on Iranian society. Beset by a whole host of economic, social and political crises, the clerical regime has tried to rein in simmering social discontent by use of brute force.
Hundreds of people have been rounded up for expressing their views or taking part in peaceful demonstrations.
Vindictive crackdown against human rights defenders as well as the heavy-handed treatment of political prisoners also stark indications of mounting repression in Iran.
Human rights defenders, members of minority communities, lawyers, journalists, labour and teacher’s rights activists and women have continued to be intimidated, harassed, arrested and detained.
Iran’s deliberate use of the capital punishment has remained a constant source of international outrage and condemnation. According to several independent international bodies including the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran and Amnesty International, Iran is the leading state in number of executions per capita. Iran also tops the charts in the number of executions of minors and juvenile offenders.
Torture and corporal punishment remained common practice in Iran’s prisons.
Accounts from former prisoners reveal the use of rape, beatings, mock executions and other forms of torture in Iran’s prisons, especially against dissidents. Prisoners dying under torture is a common happening.
As the year was ending, the simmering wave of discontent took on a sharp turn and erupted into radical anti-government protests which swept across some 172 cities and towns.
Iranian regime responded to the protests over gasoline prices rising with violence
Authorities have yet to give any overall figures for how many people were injured, arrested or killed during the several days of protests.
They shut down the internet in a bid to hide the extent of their suppression and lethal crackdown on protests in the longest blackout the country has ever seen.
Investigative reports by Iran Human Rights Monitor put the number of those arrested since November 15, at over 12,000, adding that at least 1,500 protesters have been killed by the state security forces during the protests . At least 4,000 have been injured, some with life threatening wounds.
Iran Human Rights Monitor urges the international community to hold the mullahs accountable for their crimes against humanity and stand by the Iranian people in their struggle to achieve their basic human rights.
