by (Bloomberg) – Rights groups warned that several young people, including teenagers jailed by Iran for their involvement in anti-government protests, are at risk of execution and have been tortured.
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In a statement, London-based Amnesty International urged Iran to immediately revoke death sentences for three protesters – aged 18, 19 and 31 – charged with at least two death crimes each after court hearings that lasted less than an hour. lasted.
Widespread demonstrations against the leadership of the Islamic Republic erupted in mid-September following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman. She collapsed at a police station after being arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women.
Iran has been condemned by many countries for using violence and executions to suppress the protests.
Arshia Takdastan, Mehdi Mohammadifard and Javad Rouhi are each accused of “inciting arson or vandalism by dancing, clapping, singing or throwing headscarves into bonfires” during protests in a city in northern Iran on Sept. 21, it said. Amnesty.
The men have been subjected to “flogging, electric shock, hanging upside down and death threats at gunpoint” by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to extract confessions, Amnesty said, citing “informed sources on the ground”.
In its statement, Amnesty added that one of the men had been raped while in detention and another had been sexually tortured. Rouhi was also charged with a third capital offense of apostasy after being accused of burning a copy of the Quran.
Activists have also called for the release of 21-year-old Armita Abbasi, who was arrested in October after criticizing the Islamic Republic in social media posts and will face trial on Sunday. According to a November 21 CNN report, citing interviews with unnamed doctors in Iran, she was repeatedly raped while in detention and required hospital treatment for severe bleeding.
Iranian state media denied the reports.
According to the BBC, Abbasi’s father confirmed in an Instagram post on Saturday that she will be represented by a court-approved lawyer after her original lawyer resigned because he was not allowed to meet her.
Abbasi is being held in a prison near the city of Karaj, on the western outskirts of Tehran. The Oslo-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported on January 6 that she had taken part in a group hunger strike involving 14 other female prisoners.
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