Executions, arrests and repression: Iran two years after the death of Mahsa Amini
Two years on from the murder of the young Kurdish woman at the hands of the morality police, the authorities still impose silence and censorship. Her family, confined to house arrest, iis threatened with mprisonment in the case of public ceremonies. Fragility and divisions in the opposition favour the ayatollahs. The new president promises more freedom on the internet and hijab.
Milan (AsiaNews) - Record numbers for executions, with an increase of up to 80% compared to the recent past; arrests of protesters and relatives of victims of government repression; parents being prevented from paying their respects at their daughter's grave, while dozens of female prisoners launch a hunger strike to keep her memory alive.
Two years after she was killed on 16 September 2022 as she exited a Tehran metro at the hands of the morality police, who had stopped her because she was not properly wearing the hijab, the obligatory veil, the memory of Mahsa Amini is still alive.
And of the movement that arose in the wake of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman's death, that popular uprising to the cry of ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ that the ayatollahs tried to stifle, but which remains a source of inspiration, in a battle for freedom and rights that unites a large segment of the population.
A popular uprising, quelled in blood but not wiped out, which finds in the hijab the symbol and instrument of female oppression, as underlined by the Evin prison where the Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi is imprisoned.
‘The struggle,’ writes the activist in a message that has gone viral, ’is not only to claim the right of women to dress as they wish, but also to oppose the tyranny of the theocratic dictatorship. There is no democracy without women's rights'.
Primacy in executions
In 24 months, so much has passed since the killing of the young Kurdish woman - and little or nothing has changed with the death in a helicopter crash of the ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi and the election of the moderate Masoud Pezeshkian - Iran confirms its position at the top globally for the use of the executioner. A systematic use of capital punishment not only in drug offences, but also to repress internal dissent with a record 80% growth in two years and the highest documented per capita rate worldwide.
Activists and movements linked to civil society, in fact, link the trend to a broader strategy adopted by the Islamic Republic to instil fear, while the verdict is often the outcome of trials where transparency is lacking and international standards are not met.
The group Iran Human Rights (Ihr) reports that from October 2022 to September 2024, at least 1,452 people were hanged, a significant increase from 779 in the two years prior to the 2022 protests.
According to Human Rights Watch (Hrw), most death sentences are the outcome of summary trials or with very vague charges (and evidence). In August 2023 alone, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported at least 93 executions, although Ihr and Hrana suggest the figure is well over 100. Some months of 2023, such as May, saw exceptionally high numbers, with 145 convictions followed. More than 410 executions have been recorded since January 2024, with a further escalation.
Dissent, repression and impunity
The general anger over the death of Mahsa Amini, which resulted in the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement, has been the greatest challenge to the Islamic Republic and the ayatollahs' regime since its founding in 1979.
The ensuing repression was just as bloody, with more than 550 victims including dozens of children, more than 22,000 arrests and at least 10 protesters falling into the hands of the executioner. In recent days, the young woman's father, Amjad Amini, has claimed the right of his family - as well as others who mourn the killing of relatives at the hands of the State - to honour her memory in secular or religious ceremonies.
However, the authorities have responded by using an iron fist and trying to nip in the bud any attempt at commemoration, forcing the young woman's relatives, primarily her parents, to remain confined to house arrest under threat of arrest and transfer to prison. While Iranians abroad, from Europe to the United States to Australia, have promoted demonstrations and protests, at home there are attempts at strikes - immediately blocked - in at least 11 cities in western Azarbaijan and Kurdistan.
In the days leading up to the anniversary, security and intelligence forces picked up activists and relatives of the victims, as well as tightening controls in Mahsa's hometown of Saqqez, with checkpoints and plainclothes officers patrolling the streets. Scenes similar to those of last year, on the first anniversary of the death, with the family under arrest amid fears of new popular uprisings.
In a report, the UN-backed Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran warns that Tehran has ‘intensified its efforts to ... crush the residual initiatives of women's activism’. The methods used amount to ‘crimes against humanity’, although no leader has so far been held accountable or held responsible.
‘Two years after the demonstrations, the leaders of the Islamic Republic have not restored the status quo ante, nor have they recovered their lost legitimacy,’ accuses Roya Boroumand, co-founder of the US-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Centre.
The hope of a people
The issue of women's rights and, more specifically, the issue of the veil were the focus yesterday of Pezeshkian's first press conference since taking office in July. The president assured that the morality police will no longer ‘harass’ women, following up - at least in words - on promises he made during the election campaign in which he said he was against patrols stationed in streets and squares to check women's clothing.
He also promised a relaxation of internet and social media restrictions, considering it among his government's ‘priorities’. Words - and announcements - that fuel Iranians' hope for a future of greater rights and freedom, and which have therefore been widely circulated on the web in recent hours.
Analysts and experts point out that one of the most significant results of the protests linked to the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement, at least in its first phase, was to unify the Iranian people against a violent, retrograde and repressive leadership.
The demonstrations touched more than 160 cities from metropolises such as Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Tabriz and Sanandaj to smaller urban centres, to border villages in the south-east with Pakistan or in the extreme Kurdish north.
Demonstrations joined by students, workers, members of ethnic and religious minorities, with women, the protagonists in this battle for freedom. If, on the one hand, the wave of dissent and protest has undermined the ayatollahs' regime, which has, however, been able to react, compact itself and stiffen even more, on the other, it has highlighted the internal divisions of an opposition that, on a political and institutional level, remains fragile and inconsistent.
The real problem, in fact, is the lack of internal ‘alternatives’ to the current theocratic leadership, which can thus remain firmly in power, as the scholar Arash Azizi, author of the book ‘Ce que veulent les Iraniens’, points out.
Nevertheless, he adds that he believes that ‘Iran will not return to the situation as it was before 2022’ and in the short to medium term ‘will experience radical upheavals’. In an interview granted to IranWire under a pseudonym, a leading figure in the country's cinema and culture emphasises that unity remains the fundamental value to be able to influence choices: ‘If we do not remain united, we will fall one by one’.
For this reason, he continues, ‘it may have only been two years since the night when the women of Tehran gathered outside the hospital in Kasra or since the women of Saqqez took off their veils at the cemetery in Aichi, but for us - for all those who have become “us” under a rain of bullets, in the shadow of batons, fleeing from plainclothes agents, resisting interrogations - it seems like a lifetime. A hard life, but - he concludes - full of hope'.
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