Allegations of massacres of protesters by the Iranian government under investigation

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On November 10, 2021, the Iranian Atrocity Tribunal, an independent inquiry, opened its doors to a series of public hearings to investigate allegations of mass killings of protesters by the Iranian government in 2019.

The events of 2019 refer to the murder and injury of thousands of innocent protesters in Iran. In May 2020, Amnesty International released a report detailing the deaths of 304 men, women and children killed by Iranian security forces during the November crackdown. Amnesty International found that more than 220 of the deaths recorded in just two days (16 and 17 November). According to them, “new in-depth research has again concluded that the use of lethal force by the security forces against the vast majority of those killed was illegal.” The organization estimated the actual number of deaths to be higher. The report further suggests that in nearly all of the protests in November 2019, “there is no evidence that people were in possession of firearms or posed an imminent threat to life that would have warranted the recourse. to lethal force ”.

Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), joined … [+] Thousands of dissident Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) members during a ceremony at Ashraf-3, Durres, Albania, December 19, 2019, to mark 40 days of remembrance for protesters killed during November protests in Iran. (Photo credit: Siavosh Hosseini / NurPhoto via Getty Images)

NurPhoto via Getty Images

At the time of the publication of Amnesty International’s report, six months after the killings, the Iranian authorities had not published an official report. According to the organization, “Iranian authorities have made a series of false statements or produced propaganda videos on state television saying that most of the victims were killed by armed ‘rioters’ or working ‘suspicious agents’. for “enemies” of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In another report, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Javaid Rehman, said: Unfair trials. While the government has created a compensation regime for victims and ordered investigations, these processes lack transparency and independence and do not hold perpetrators of human rights violations to account. The families of the victims were also reportedly harassed by the authorities for reporting.

The Iranian Atrocity Tribunal is holding hearings in London from November 10 to 14. The public hearings are part of an independent inquiry into the events of 2019.

On November 10, in a surprise appearance, a world-renowned journalist, Masih Alinejad, testified before the Tribunal. She interviewed 25 families of the victims and reported evidence of torture, and threats of sexual abuse and rape of the mothers of the victims. As she said at the hearing, “Some families were forced to guarantee that if they interviewed the media, their other children would die, either in a car accident or in some other way.”

The Tribunal will hear from dozens of witnesses and investigate the role of 133 Iranian government officials. Among other things, the Tribunal must assess the crimes allegedly committed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei and President Ebrahim Raisi, and whether they could be qualified as crimes against humanity. It is a judgment that he expected at the beginning of 2022.

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