In all the years of its rule, the Iranian regime has been violating the rights of citizens with cruel and oppressive methods.
Children have always been victims of systematic violations of human rights in Iran.
Under the clerical regime in Iran, children’s rights are violated through executions, child labor, deprivation of education, and child marriage.
The regime routinely reduces the budget for educational centers or support centers for children and teenagers every year and instead increases the budgets of repressive forces and state propaganda.
In the meantime, the state forces’ shooting and killing of children make news every now and then in Iran.
Directly Shooting at children in the western regions of the country as well as in Sistan and Baluchistan Province under the pretext of dealing with “trafficking” has become a common practice.
Children are forced to work as porters (kolbars) or fuel carriers in western and southeastern Iran, which are among the most deprived regions of Iran.
The state security forces have never been held responsible for the murder of citizens, especially children, and the judiciary does not take serious action in prosecuting criminals.
The officials never accepted their responsibility in protecting children’s rights and were never held accountable for human rights violations in Iran.
On July 31, the state security forces opened fire on a car at a checkpoint in Khorramabad, western Iran, killing 11-year-old Mehdi and 9-year-old Matin Rashedimanesh, who were brothers.
Reports indicate that the state forces shot at the car claiming to be carrying contraband despite knowing the presence of family members in the car.
The state security forces arrested the children’s parents after the shooting.
On January 19, the state security forces in Zanjan opened fire on a passenger car killing an innocent 8-year-old girl named Mezgin Palangi, and injuring her 16-year-old sister, Falak Palangi. The car’s occupants were a mother with her two daughters and a son.
On May 10, 2021, the state security forces in Sistan and Baluchestan fatally shot a Baluch child in Iranshahr. The child was identified as five-year-old Meisam Narouie.
A glance at the dark record of the Iranian regime’s rights violations shows that shooting children to secure the interests of the government is a precedent.
The Iranian regime in the past four decades has killed Iranians including children with impunity.
Dozens of children were killed by Iranian security forces in the nationwide protests in November 2019.
At least 22 children were shot dead by Iranian security forces unlawfully firing live ammunition at unarmed protesters and bystanders, according to an investigation by Amnesty International.
Some 29 children were among 176 people killed in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 in January 2020.
The shooting of children by the state forces and the lack of the authorities’ accountability regarding these murders, is a part of the systematic policies of repression by the regime which has a dark history of executing and killing children.
The Iranian regime extrajudicially executed more than 30.000 political prisoners in the summer of 1988. Hundreds of the massacre victims had been arrested as minors.
A crisis of impunity in Iran has allowed regime officials to continue their human rights abuses and be rewarded instead of being held accountable.
