Iran is a country ruled by the authoritarian mullahs’ regime. It is suffering from decades of enforced war, human rights violations, poor governance, widespread poverty, and a theocracy that intervenes in the lives of the Iranian people.
On September 16, civil unrest and a nationwide protest erupted across the country after a 22-year-old woman named Mahsa Amini was killed by the Iranian regime’s forces in police custody. She had been arrested by the so-called ‘morality police’ for allegedly violating the regime’s fabricated mandatory hijab law.
Reports of the initial protests were shared on social media, but with the protests spreading to other cities and the regime fearing a revolution, everything went dark. The regime decided to cut off access to the internet and phone services to prevent the further spread of information. This was only a taste of what was to come and what the people would later face from a brutal and inhuman crime.
The escalation of the widespread protests led the regime to order a crackdown on the demonstrations with excessive violence and lethal forces, including live ammunition, which led to the arrests of over 30,000 people and the deaths of over 750. The regime also responded with unthinkable abuse against the people, including torture and sexual abuse, especially against women.
Under various excuses, the regime has been arresting people across the country at every opportunity in the ongoing protests. Most notably, the crime of enforced disappearance has become commonplace, among the regime’s security forces, to deal with the number of detainees. There is no precise estimation of the people who have forcibly disappeared.
Enforced disappearances are not a new phenomenon in Iran’s troubled history since the mullahs seized the country. Every day, thousands of people are looking for their sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, friends, and loved ones, searching for where they have been detained, whether they are still detained or, even worse, if they are not alive.
Families are currently going through psychological stress and sorrow, left to deal with the unstoppable concern about the fate of their relatives, even though many of them are aware that they will never see their beloved ones again.
This crime often leaves no trace. In Iran, the perpetrators are going unpunished and enjoy complete impunity. The regime has no qualms about disappearing people against their will, often very suddenly.
Information on the victims is never released, and their fate is often never known. Those arrested know that their families do not know and will not know their whereabouts and are left to deal with the fact that someone is unlikely to come to their aid.
According to the United Nations, an act of enforced disappearance is the arrest, detention, kidnapping, or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents or by persons acting with the authorization or support of the state. It is a crime under international law.
This crime violates the right to liberty and security, the right to life, the prohibition of torture, the right to be recognized as a person before the law, the right to the truth, and the right to privacy and family life.
By searching on social media, especially Twitter, using the expression “ربوده شد” (abducted) we see a long list of people, many of whom are women, who were arrested by the regime and have been enforced to disappear.
Names such as:
- Ramin Pouramin,
- Tahereh Bajravani,
- Amin Bighal,
- Hadiseh Najand,
- Zana Karami,
- Mehdi Moradi,
- Atefeh Shamasi,
- Arin Farzamnia,
- Kian Zainali,
- Ayda Rasti Ghalati,
- Pourya Hamid Khani,
- Hasti Ofogh,
- Parsallah Verdtaemeh,
- Vourya Ghaderian,
- Iman Navabi,
- Kamran Salehi,
- Sina Berkpour,
- Raha Ajudani,
- Farnoush Farzan,
- Pourya Mousavi,
- Sogol Borji,
- Mina Afshari,
- Sanaz Shah Hosseini,
- Nilufar Shakeri,
- Parsa Shahmari,
- Morteza Ghaderi,
- Behnam Shahabi,
- Mahkameh Dashtestani,
- Elaheh Mirmehdi,
- Arash Sayad Mansour,
- Mahsa Ghorbani,
- Yousef Moradi,
- Houman Seydali,
- Abbas Kurkuri,
- Amin Jangjou,
- Amir Hushmand,
- Ruzbeh Bakhtiari,
- Vahid Mousavi,
- Mohammad Moin Nemati,
- Danial Ghazaljai,
- Mohammad Soltani,
- Barbod Dadashzadeh,
- Marzieh Ziari,
- Masumeh Hosseinzadeh,
- Hossein Firouzi,
- Mina Afshari,
- Kimya Vahabifar,
- Zahra Ahmadirad,
- Sahar Fathi,
- Mohammad Hossein Dehgani,
- Shahin Rezaee,
- Saedeh Mohammadi,
- Raha Lonj,
- Suroush Purahmadi,
- Parisa Nikkhou,
- Hamed Zohrabi,
- Hamid Sharifi,
- Behnam Fayaz,
- Najib Mohammadi,
- Zahra Banizadeh,
- Adel Gorgij,
- Mahkameh Dashtestani,
- Parvaneh Kadkhoda Ghamsari,
- Atefeh Shamasi,
- Behnam Khanbabai,
- Yasser Rahmanirad, etc.
According to the statistics published by Kurdish websites, during the 100 days of protests in Iran, more than 500 Kurdish women in the provinces of Ilam, Kermanshah, Kurdistan, West Azarbaijan, and other cities were kidnapped or detained by the regime’s forces. The identities of 201 people were confirmed, including 27 students, 6 teachers, a lawyer, and 30 minors under 18 years old.
For the first time, in an article published on December 18, horrible news has been circulating on social media that regime authorities had witnessed throwing about 15 people from a chopper into the waters of the Persian Gulf.
Fishermen from Shif Island were the witnesses of this crime. In reports, they stated, “a few nights ago, we went to the sea with a barge to catch fish. Somewhere between Bushehr and Khark, we noticed a helicopter dropping big sacks in the middle of the night into the sea.”
They explained, “The lights of the barge were off, and the helicopter passengers did not notice us. Out of curiosity, we tried to take the sacks out of the water. We only got hold of two of them. When we opened the sack, there was a living person in it; Naked and beaten. along with large amounts of stone to take him to the bottom of the sea.”
The fishermen added, “Fifteen sacks were thrown; this could be recognized from the sound of the sacks hitting the water’s surface. We only caught two people alive and didn’t get the rest of the sacks. The two spoke in Kurdish and were arrested in recent events. We gave them clothes, food, and some money and sent them secretly.”
This crime is just a glimpse of what the Iranian regime is doing to the people who have been arrested in the recent protests, in their bid to quell the unrest and fight for their survival.
