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In the shadow of Iran’s brutal crackdown on national anti-regime protests, families and human rights organizations say the Islamic Republic’s authorities are also at least torturing them to death. seven Kurds.
Half a year has passed since the family of Mahsa Jina Amini said the 22-year-old Kurdish woman was killed by regime authorities after she was arrested, allegedly for wearing the hijab improperly. His death sparked an unprecedented chain of protests in Iran.
Since then, security forces have been captured on video, subject to Kurds for the crackdown is particularly harsh answer to popular protest.
At least 121 Kurds, including 11 children, have been killed by security forces during anti-regime protests, according to a European base. Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
Human rights organizations say this killing is another example of the Islamic Republic long standing persecution from Iran’s ethnic Kurdish minority, which continues to be not proportional affected by the oppression of the authorities.
“Under the shadows official execution The Islamic Republic continues to persecute the Kurdish minority and has killed or tortured many citizens to death,” said Kurdish human rights lawyer Soran Mansournia.
“It is very sad that Western media and politicians do not know the names and stories of these individuals,” he said.
The following profile of those who were reportedly killed due to torture, compiled with the help of testimony from five sources close to the victims’ families and friends whom CBC News did not name due to safety concerns, as well as Soran Mansournia and KHRN.
Authorities in Iran did not respond to multiple CBC requests for comment on the circumstances of the death.
Nasrin Ghaderi
Longtime civil and political activist Nasrin Ghaderi, 39, is no stranger to power. He was imprisoned on several occasions, including in 2009 for bad-hejabi, or suspected of wearing the obligatory hijab incorrectly.
Originally from Marivan, Kurdistan province, he decided to stay in Tehran after completing his bachelor’s degree in philosophy. Ghaderi joined the protest when it started in September 2022.
On November 4, 2022, Ghaderi’s family became worried after not hearing from him for several hours. His brother went to his house, where he found Ghaderi’s body on the floor.
Sources close to the family said security forces came to their home with the intention of abducting them, but it was clear they had resisted.
“His head was badly hit. I used batons to beat him several times, until he was finally killed. He was bruised and the blood was removed from his face,” said the source.
When the ambulance arrived, so did the authorities. Sources said security forces quickly took control and threatened the family.
Ghaderi’s father, who had arrived in Tehran at this time, said that the authorities had told him that if he did not remain silent about his daughter’s death, they would bury the body in an undisclosed location. The looting of corpses by regime forces has been reported in large numbers another case.
A source close to the family said security forces confiscated cellphones belonging to Ghaderi’s father and brother, then “escorted” the family to Kurdistan province. They followed the ambulance carrying the body. During the eight-hour journey, sources told CBC News, Ghaderi’s father was forced to appear on state television to say his daughter had died of an underlying illness.
So far, Ghaderi’s family said the authorities have not returned the laptop and USB drives taken from their home.
Sources close to Ghaderi say that she is a woman who loves poetry and just wants to live in the world of poetry and be free.
“He believed in God who is the God of freedom. In one of his last poems before he died, he wrote: Sing in the name of God who created freedom. Sing in the name of the creator: ‘Woman, Life, Freedom.’ “
Shadman Ahmadi
When protests first erupted last year, sources close to 23-year-old Shadman Ahmadi said he participated in most of the demonstrations in the Kurdistan province city of Dehgolan.
Ahmadi has had several interactions with the authorities over the years, and when he attended the protest on December 8, 2022, it was easy to spot him in the crowd, sources close to his family said.
According to witnesses, security forces surrounded Ahmadi and tried to detain him. Despite being beaten and kicked by at least a dozen agents, they said they continued to resist and that the authorities prevented many people from coming to help.
Witnesses said that only after Ahmadi was stunned with a stun gun and severely beaten were the agents able to drag him to the police station.
A source attached to the prison where Ahmadi was held told his family that he was tortured to death after he was thrown into his cell.
Mansournia said the authorities in Dehgolan have a certain grudge against Ahmadis.
“Shadman is a tough guy with a big presence,” he said. “He has had many physical confrontations with the authorities over the years in street protests that have not been able to control him. So when they arrest him, they can take revenge.”
As news of Ahmadi’s arrest spread, prison sources said agents would take turns kicking and beating him with batons. Four hours after he was first picked up by authorities, the family was notified that he had died.
Chief Justice Dehgolan told the family that Ahmadi committed suicide and that he would be buried by court agents – which the family denied.
His parents and close friends rushed to the mortuary to prepare Ahmadi’s body for burial. That’s when they saw the signs of torture: his back was completely black, his wrist was broken and his skull was also cracked.
His friends took a big risk and recorded Ahmadi’s body to expose what happened to him. At video graphics which has now been posted on social media, his friends can be heard crying over Ahmadi’s ailing body – and sometimes voicing their anger and disdain for the regime’s security forces.
Ahmadi was so loved that many people gathered for his funeral and two commemorations after his burial.
Mohammad Haji Rasulpour
Mohammad Haji Rasulpour, 57, is a former political prisoner known for advocating women’s rights in the city of Bukan.
“Everyone said that she was always in the first line at the demonstrations – especially the protests for women’s rights,” Mansournia said. “He was tortured and imprisoned many times, but that never stopped him from standing up for what was right.”
Rasulpour was arrested in the Kurdish city of Bukan on October 1, 2022, and released on bail 16 days later. He was arrested again in late November, in front of a store.
Twenty days passed before his family was informed by the authorities that Rasulpour could be released on bail of around five billion Iranian rials (then valued at $22,000 Cdn.)
When his family arrived at the prison, Rasulpour was handed over in a wheelchair. To his shock and horror, he realized that he was unconscious and had marks of torture on his body.
He was rushed to the hospital where he was admitted to the intensive care unit. Rasulpour died five days later on December 18, 2022.
The next day, a crowd gathered at his grave, chanting anti-regime slogans including Kurds chant “Jan, Jiyan, Azadi” (Women, Freedom to Live), which has become the slogan of the uprising.
The goal is to end the persecution of the Kurds
Mansournia and other human rights advocates say that shedding light on the case is crucial in ending the persecution and killing of Kurds.
“The Western media’s lack of attention to Iran’s marginalized provinces like Kurdistan or Sistan-Baluchestan allows the regime to often kill Kurds with complete torture,” said KHNR volunteer Fatemeh Karimi.
“The regime usually accuses Kurds of being members of a political party and therefore a threat to national security. So, killing Kurdish prisoners under torture is often a small cost for the government,” he said.
Documenting the crime was also personal to Mansournia, whose own brother, Borhan Mansourniashot by regime forces in the Kurdish-majority city of Kermanshah (Kirmaşan in Kurdish) during the November 2019 anti-regime uprising.
Mansournia and other Iranians whose family members were victims of crimes committed by the Islamic Republic have founded it Iranian Revolutionary Council. The goal is to eventually bring regime officials to justice.
Since Amini’s death on September 16, 2022, at least 530 protesters, including 71 children, have been killed, human rights group HRANA report.
Protests continued in pockets of the country – most notably in the southeastern provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan.
Iranian authorities have since admitted that the number of people detained in connection with the protests is more than 22,000.
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