Thread by @AmnestyIran

1) Today @amnesty published a new report on the human rights violations committed by the Iranian authorities during and in the aftermath of the nationwide November 2019 protests that were brutally suppressed. This is a Twitter thread with some of our main findings #BloodyNovember

2) Iranian authorities arrested more than 7000 men, women and children as young as 10 in relation to the November 2019 protests. Those targeted for arrest included protesters, journalists and human rights defenders including minority rights activists amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

3) With the complicity of top officials, judges & prosecutors, Iranian police, intelligence & security forces, and prison officials, committed a shocking catalogue of human rights violations including arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and torture against detainees.

4) Hundreds of people have been sentenced to prison terms & flogging and 3 young men sentenced to death following grossly unfair trials which were presided over by biased judges behind closed doors and which systematically relied on torture-tainted “confessions” to convict people

5) @amnesty’s research found there was widespread use of torture and other ill-treatment by police, intelligence and security agents and prison officials against men, women and children during arrest & in detention. They used torture to punish, intimidate and humiliate detainees.

6) Torture was used to elicit “confessions” and incriminating statements from detainees, not just about their involvement in the protests, but also about their alleged associations w/opposition groups, human rights defenders, media outside Iran, as well as w/foreign governments.

7) Here are some of the gruesome torture methods used against detainees:

- Beatings through punches/kicks, and with sticks, rubber hosepipes, batons and cables

- Floggings

- Forcing detainees to hold painful stress positions

- Forced administration of chemical substances

8) More torture methods used against detainees in Iran:

- Electric shocks

- Forcible extraction of nails from fingers/toes

- Stripping detainees & spraying them w/cold water

- Subjecting detainees to extreme temperatures and/or bombardment of light or sound

9) More torture methods used against protesters who were arrested in relation to the November 2019 protests in Iran:

- waterboarding

- hanging upside down for prolonged periods

- deprivation of food/water

- prolonged solitary confinement

- denial of medical care

10) In one detention centre in Tehran, Revolutionary Guards agents subjected at least two detainees to mock executions. The torture involved blindfolding victims and subjecting them to mock hanging, as well as holding an unloaded gun to their heads and firing blanks.

11) Other torture methods used by intelligence and security agents included sexual violence against male detainees. This was done through rape, stripping and forced nakedness, sexual verbal abuse, pepper spraying the genital area, administering electric shocks to the testicles.

12) Amnesty International received reports from Kurdistan province that three schoolboys held in a Revolutionary Guards detention centre in the city of Mariwan were sexually abused. The abuse allegedly involved rape through penetration of the anus with batons.

13) Amnesty International received reports that, in Mashhad, several adult men held in unofficial
secret detention places referred to colloquially as “safe houses” were stripped of their clothes & raped through penetration of the anus w/various instruments,
incl drink bottles

14) Detainees were subjected to psychological torture:

- degrading verbal insults &profanities
- intimidation & harassment of families
- threats to arrest, torture, kill/harm family members, incl elderly parents or spouses
- threats to rape detainees or female family members

15) Amnesty International’s research shows that many detainees were subjected to enforced disappearance for weeks or months while held in undisclosed locations run by the security and intelligence bodies including the ministry of intelligence or the Revolutionary Guards.

16) Amnesty International is aware of three ongoing cases of enforced disappearance, where the authorities continue to conceal their fate & whereabouts from their families. They include brothers Mehdi and Mostafa Roodbarian from Mahshahr, Khuzestan province.

17) More than 500 protesters and others, including journalists and human rights defenders, have been subjected to unfair criminal proceedings in connection with the protests. Detainees were systematically denied access to their lawyers at the investigation phase of their case.

18) Some detainees were also denied access to their lawyers even at their trial. Several detainees were tried and sentenced in their absence and at least two didn't even know their trials had taken place until they received their court verdicts.

19) Scores of people have been sentenced to prison terms. More than a dozen people have received flogging sentences, in addition to prison terms. At least two people have had their flogging sentences carried out. Three protesters were sentenced to death.

20) Courts also meted out unusual punishments to some people including:

- washing corpses in a morgue for several months

- studying and transcribing by hand the full text of religious books and then responding to questions to assess their familiarity with the content

21) Some more unusual punishment given to protesters by Iranian courts:

- researching the topic of Islamic hijab and hand writing a 90-page paper on it

- forced service in the paramilitary Basij force

- “internal exile” in a remote part of the country

22) The human rights violations have been committed w/total impunity & have been accompanied by forced televised ‘confessions’ in state propaganda videos and grotesque statements from top officials praising security forces as heroes for their role in the brutal protest crackdown.

23) Given the gravity of the violations perpetrated & the systematic impunity prevailing in Iran, @amnesty calls on UN Human Rights Council to mandate a UN-led inquiry into the violations committed with a view to ensuring accountability and guarantees of non-repetition.