Amnesty International identifies 87 high-ranking officials of Iran for the repression of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement

Barcelona“They riddled the car with bullets. I told the children to hide under the seats”: this is how Zeinab Molaierad remembers the death of her 9-year-old son, Kian Pirfalak, in September 2022. The family was returning home to the Iranian city of Izeh when plainclothes officers opened fire on the vehicle. The authorities attributed the deaths that evening to a terrorist attack. It is one of the hundreds of cases collected in the Amnesty International report Architects of Atrocities, a thousand-page investigation published this Wednesday, coinciding with the second anniversary of the murder of the young Mahsa Gina Amini, arrested by the morality police for not wearing her veil in accordance with their strict rules. A death that triggered a historic protest movement drowned in blood by the regime of the ayatollahs.

Amnesty demands the criminal investigation of 87 high-ranking officials of the Iranian regime identified for their role in the repression of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement revolt. The organization concludes that the murders, torture, enforced disappearances, rapes, and other abuses were a “widespread and systematic” attack against the civilian population in application of a state policy. The report documents the death of 377 protesters and bystanders in 26 of the country's 31 provinces, including 56 minors. Of this total, 326 died at the hands of security forces during protests or in militarized zones, 18 in custody, 10 after being released from prison, and 23 in suspicious cases pointing to state agents.

The organization also publishes a document with the names of the 377 victims, with photographs and images of the burial sites whenever it has been able to obtain them. The investigation confirms that the repression disproportionately affected the Kurdish and Baluchi minorities. Together they represent 62% of the documented victims, even though Baluchis are approximately 5% of the Iranian population and Kurds between 10% and 15%.

On September 30, 2022, alone, in the episode known as the Zahedan Bloody Friday, security forces murdered 87 people after Friday prayers. In the Kurdish areas, some victims died from gunshots, others from beatings, impacts from tear gas canisters, or because they were deliberately run over by security forces' vehicles. Amnesty concludes that the murders and torture against Kurdish and Baluchi protesters also had an intent of political and ethnic discrimination and constitute the crime against humanity of persecution.

The order: "respond without mercy"

The gathered testimonies describe scenes typical of a war. Shahram, from the city of Javanrud, recalls that protesters were chased by uniformed members of the Revolutionary Guard armed with Kalashnikovs: “It looked like a battlefield. [...] They were firing continuously.” Iman, a witness in Sanandaj, states that the agents “fired at anyone who entered their field of vision, whether they were women, children, pedestrians, or protesters.”

The report reveals the content of leaked official documents which, according to Amnesty, show a coordinated state policy: strategic meetings, binding orders, deployment plans, allocation of money and weapons, and instructions to provide a “firm and severe” response. One of the orders urged forces to “respond without mercy and even go as far as causing death.”

Chain of command

Amnesty has exhaustively reconstructed the chain of command. The 87 identified officials include ten state-level, four regional, 21 provincial, and 52 local positions. At the top, it places Ali Khamenei, then supreme leader and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, assassinated on February 28 at the start of the joint attack by the United States and Israel against the Islamic Republic. Also pointed out is Mohammad Bagheri, chief of the General Staff, who died in June; Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guard, and Mohammad Pakpour, commander of its ground forces.

The report recalls that the supreme leader appointed the top military and police officials and exercised command authority over them. It points to Hossein Ashtari, commander-in-chief of the police during the protests, who publicly praised the officers and urged them to continue their “critical mission” while labeling the protesters as “rioters” and “seditionists.” Also Ahmad Vahidi, Minister of the Interior, who presided over the State Security Council and had authority over the police, and Majid Mir Ahmadi, Deputy Minister for Security and Police, who acted as a link between the Council's decisions and their implementation.

In total, 33 Revolutionary Guard commanders, 27 police officers, and 25 officials from the Ministry of the Interior are identified. Amnesty considers there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that 62 commanders may bear responsibility for crimes committed by their subordinates and that 25 civilian officials could have contributed to facilitating them. The list is not exhaustive: it focuses especially on 17 counties in Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan, where Amnesty has been able to conduct a detailed investigation of the repression.

The NGO highlights that the majority of those identified who are still alive still hold positions from which they can participate in new repression; some have even been promoted since 2022. The organization calls for criminal investigations, including the application of universal jurisdiction in third countries, and requests that the UN Security Council refer the situation to the International Criminal Court.

Given the lack of internal avenues for access to justice, Amnesty demands that the UN Security Council refer the situation in Iran to the International Criminal Court. It also asks the General Assembly to create a specific international criminal justice mechanism and urges prosecutors in other countries to open investigations under universal jurisdiction against those responsible in Iran and, if there is sufficient evidence, to issue arrest warrants.