Since the beginning of the protest movement in Iran nearly a month ago, dozens of children have been killed in the crackdown and hundreds imprisoned, some being held in centers responsible for “re-educate“, according to the authorities and NGOs.
Iran has been rocked since September 16 by protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd who died three days after she was arrested by morality police in Tehran for allegedly breaking the code. Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women, including the wearing of the veil.
“Between 11 and 17 years old”
“woman, life, freedom” Where “Death to the Dictator» chant the Iranian women, spearheading the demonstrations in which many young people also participate, sometimes at the risk of their lives. According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), at least 18 youths have been killed since mid-September. The youngest was 12, according to this source. Amnesty Iran mentions on Twitter at least 23 children “unlawfully killed by Iranian security forces“. “The victims are between 11 and 17 years old.“, specifies the organization.
Read alsoProtests in Iran: “The death of Mahsa Amini has awakened Iranian men”
But the toll could be even higher, say NGOs. The Iranian Society for the Protection of Children’s Rights reported this week that at least 28 children had been killed, “most in the impoverished province of Sistan-Balochistanin the southeast of the country. The Iran-based organization further reported that families were “kept in the darkon the fate of their arrested children who are, moreover, deprived of legal representation.
Some young people are imprisoned in centers for adult drug offenders, warned Hassan Raissi, an Iranian human rights lawyer. These informations “are very disturbing“, he judged, stressing that young people “under the age of 18 should never be held with criminals over the age of 18. It is a legal obligation“. According to this lawyer, quoted on Wednesday by the Iran Wire news site, “approximately 300 people aged between 12-13 and 18-19 are in police custody“.
“Antisocials”
Unicef said on Monday “very worried“information stating”children and adolescents killed, injured and arrested“. Iranian Education Minister Youssef Nouri admitted that school children had been arrested on the streets or in their schools. “There are not a lot. I can’t give an exact numberhe said, according to statements published Wednesday by the reformist newspaper Shargh. He specified that these young people were detained in “medico-psychological centers“where they are the subject of a”re-educationso that they don’t becomeantisocial“.
Read alsoShirin Ebadi: “This time, it is the theocratic dictatorship which is questioned in Iran”
Despite the severe Internet access restrictions imposed by the authorities to deal with what they call “riots“, young Iranians managed to broadcast images of the demonstrations on ultra-popular applications like TikTok and Instagram. In the street too they adapt, going to demonstrations masked and wearing hats, leaving their telephones at home so as not to be located and taking spare clothes in case the security forces fire paint cartridges on them so that they can then identify.
“Video games”
Ali Fadavi, deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards, the regime’s ideological army, told the local press in early October that “the average age of those arrested in many of the recent protests was 15“. “Some teenagers and young adults arrested have (…) compared the riots to video games” in their “confessionhe said, quoted by the Mehr news agency.
Read alsoIran: faced with the revolt, the regime chooses the flight forward
The cleric Aboulfazl Ahmadi, head of a provincial organization linked to the morality police, recently estimated that the “enemiesof Iran – a term which, according to the authorities, designates forces abroad such as the United States – had “bet on” teenagers and that video games had been created for “attract young people to the streets“.