Amnesty International published its annual report on Tuesday, February 18, 2020.
The section on Iran points among others to the Iranian people’s uprising in November 2019 and the killing of protesters. “Many died from gunshot wounds to vital organs; Thousands of protesters were arbitrarily detained,” Amnesty added.
Amnesty International also asserted that several people died in custody following their arrests during the November protests.
In another part of its annual report, AI pointed out, “Hundreds of others were arbitrarily detained in relation to the peaceful exercise of their rights, generally on spurious national security charges. At least 240 were human rights defenders, including lawyers, labour rights activists, environmental activists, minority rights activists, women’s rights activists, antideath penalty campaigners and those seeking truth, justice and reparation for the mass extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances of the 1980s.”
Regarding the situation of women in Iran, the annual report notes, “The authorities intensified their crackdown against women’s rights defenders campaigning against discriminatory forced veiling laws…
“More broadly, women continued to face entrenched discrimination in family and criminal law, including in relation to marriage, divorce, employment, inheritance and political office.
Authorities failed to criminalize gender-based violence against women and girls, including domestic violence and early and forced marriage, which remained widespread. The judiciary watered down a long-standing bill aimed at protecting women against violence that it was reviewing and sent it to the government’s bills committee for its review in
September.”
In another part of its annual report, Amnesty International wrote, “The authorities committed the ongoing crime against humanity of enforced disappearance by systematically concealing the fate and whereabouts of several thousand political dissidents who were forcibly disappeared during a wave of secret mass extrajudicial executions in Iran between July and September 1988. The continued suffering inflicted on victims’ families violated the absolute prohibition on torture and other ill-treatment.
“Many of the officials who are suspected of being involved in the enforced disappearances and mass extrajudicial executions of 1988, including individuals linked to the “death commissions”, continued to hold positions of power. Alireza Avaei remained Iran’s minister of justice; in March; Ebrahim Raisi was appointed as the head of the judiciary; and, in July, Mostafa Pour Mohammadi, advisor to Iran’s head of the judiciary and a former minister of justice, threatened individuals advocating for truth and accountability with prosecution for “terrorism” and “collusion” with Iran’s enemies.”