“Iranian security forces’ brutality against detained protesters, including rape and torture, are not only egregious crimes but a weapon of injustice wielded against detainees to coerce them into false confessions,” according to Nahid Naghshbandi, an Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch. “These methods are also a twisted and despicable means of further stigmatizing and repressing marginalized ethnic minorities.”

A Kurdish woman told Human Rights Watch that in November 2022 she was raped by two men in the prison. A woman helped the rapists to hold her head down.

Such atrocities were never confined to women. A 24-year-old Kurdish man from West Azerbaijan province recounted that intelligence forces tortured and raped him in a secret detention center in September 2022. A 30-year-old man from East Azerbaijan province said he was raped by security forces along with other blindfolded protestors in October 2022.

Previous reports on Iranian security forces’ torture and sexual assaults on men, women, and children at detention centers as well as suspicious deaths have been published by the Human Rights Watch. The Iranian authorities refused to provide any medical treatment or hygiene supplies, exacerbating the conditions of the tortured protestors.

“Accounts of brutal rape and the lasting traumatic consequences of those crimes should mobilize countries to meet the physical and psychological health needs of survivors who have managed to flee Iran,” Naghshbandi said. “They should also mobilize Iranians at home and abroad to push for accountability and justice.”

Source: https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/22/iran-security-forces-rape-torture-detainees