Ethnic and religious minority groups in Iran have suffered more than the rest of the population from the government’s crackdowns on the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ protests which began in 2022, according to an Aug. 5 advocacy paper by the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Minorities “have been disproportionally impacted by the Government’s crackdown on protesters since 2022, the direct result of long-standing discrimination that must end immediately,” said an Aug. 5 UN Human Rights Office statement about the paper.
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The mission was set up to investigate allegations of human rights violations in Iran linked to demonstrations for the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement, which then turned into anti-government rallies. The protests erupted following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody, after she was detained for failing to follow the country’s mandatory dress code for women. An estimated 500 people were killed by security forces during the protests, including at least 68 children.
The paper sets out a range of human rights breaches committed by security forces against minority groups, with Kurd and Baluch communities most affected. Children from minority groups were also disproportionately impacted through “multifaceted harms,” the effect of which, the mission said, would last for decades.
Violations included “unlawful deaths, extrajudicial executions, unnecessary use of lethal force, arbitrary arrests, torture, rape, enforced disappearances and gender persecution – many of which amount to crimes against humanity,” the UN statement said. “Children belonging to ethnic and religious minorities suffered particularly egregious violations in the context of the protests, including killings and maiming, arrests, enforced disappearances, detention, as well as torture and rape and other forms of sexual violence, resulting in lasting harm.”
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The targeting of ethnic minorities in Iran by officials to silence dissidents and create division, and the need to address ethnic divides in the Islamic Republic were themes discussed in a white paper published in July, titled, “Equal shareholders in Iran Plc: Promoting justice and equality & ending discriminations,” by the London-based Iranian Centre for Political Studies (ICPS).
The center engages social and political experts to provide analysis on Iran and to take part in seminars addressing current developments in the country. The ICPS was founded by Iranian diplomat and former lawmaker Dr. Mehrdad Khonsari and Iranian writer and journalist Mohammad Jawad Akbarin.
“The idea was to try to isolate extremists in these ethnic groups, and to try to bring credible, well-known figures from the ethnic groups, from academia” and from “leading political figures and prominent activists, to come up with a white paper that serves as a guideline for promoting further discussions in order to to reach some kind of a consensus that can work,” Dr. Khonsari told Kayhan Life. “Whether you are a Republican or a Monarchist, it doesn’t matter. If you are moderate in nature and are not an extremist and you’re not an exclusivist, then this can work.”
“This white paper has tried to illustrate the steps that need to be taken to encourage dialog amongst moderates. In the first instance, to exclude maximalist and radical people who who are bent on wanting to demand separatism or willing to engage in violence and terrorism and to separate those from the wider, much larger community who want to resolve these issues peacefully,” Khonsari said. “It doesn’t prescribe any particular avenue because that is up to various different groups to sit down and negotiate.”
The authors of the research were Khonsari, Akbarin and Iranian journalist and nationalist-religious activist Reza Alijani. Religious-Nationalists are a political faction in Iran who support Iranian nationalism and Islam.
Prior to founding ICPS, Khonsari served in the Iranian Mission to the United Nations from 1973 to 1975, and in 1977 was posted to the Iranian Embassy in London. Akbarin, a former cleric and theological scholar, was jailed by the government in 2000 for one year for expressing critical views of the Islamic Republic, in articles he wrote for several newspapers.
Alijani, who received the laureate of the Reporters Without Borders press freedom award in 2001, was sentenced to six years in prison in 2003 and stripped of his civil rights for ten years by Iran officials for carrying out his journalism.
The research makes several recommendations, including viewing Iran’s cultural diversity as a strength which as an example allows the country to engage in good relationships with neighboring countries; educating Iranians about the terminology used in political discussions about Iran; and investigating new political frameworks to stem discrimination.
The authors of the research held that “most active political or ethnic groups are generally believed to have shared or common views and perspectives” on issues such as democracy based on human rights, secularism, separation of powers, a need for decentralization and the elimination of all forms of discrimination and the “preservation of the territorial integrity of the country.”
The research added that these groups believed “that the attainment of these goals is contingent upon the replacement of the current theocratic government with a government that is based on the will of the people.”
“Sadly, the scene outside Iran and especially inside Iran, has been dominated by people who shout louder and they prevent sensible messages from being heard,” Khonsari said. “Our quest has been to try to solidify the sensible messages and to ensure that it can overcome and reach key constituencies that can give resonance to that and, in essence, block the extremists from preventing consensus that needs to be reached between moderates Iranians, not just outside Iran, but inside Iran.”
Commenting on the importance of Iranians working together to bring about a unified Iran, Khonsari concluded: “Kayhan’s founder Mr. Mostafa Mesbahzadeh and I coined a slogan for the newspaper, though I have to give most of the credit to him, which is: ‘New thoughts and ideas, new plans, new men and new women, for a new Iran.’”
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