Iran arrests protesters, reformists to crush dissent after deadly crackdown

After a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests that left thousands dead, Iranian authorities are taking the next step to crush dissent: mass arrests.

Tens of thousands of people have been arrested during the nationwide unrest, and security forces continue to track down and arrest people they say took part in protests calling for an end to theocratic rule, human rights monitors say. But in recent weeks, authorities have also targeted specific groups perceived as threats to the regime, including reform-minded politicians, doctors, lawyers and journalists, rights groups say.

The arrests have not dampened anti-government sentiment: protests have erupted in recent days on several university campuses, according to state media and videos circulating on social media.

“What they have left are weapons, prisons and revolutionary courts. To kill and imprison people and thus stay in power,” said Hossein Raeesi, a prominent human rights lawyer who practiced in Iran for 20 years and is now a professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.

President Donald Trump said in his State of the Union address Tuesday that Iran has killed at least 32,000 protesters.

“They shot them and hanged them,” he said. “We stopped them from hanging many of them under threat of serious violence. But these are terrible people.”

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) on Monday put the number of people killed during the protests at more than 7,000, with almost 12,000 cases “under review”.

The group says it verifies each death with a network of activists on the ground in Iran and that its data is subject to “multiple internal controls.”

The United States is leading a huge military buildup in the Middle East, and Trump has not ruled out an attack on Iran, even if the two countries are in nuclear negotiations.

A new round of talks took place in Geneva on Thursday, while Iran warned against a significant response to even a limited attack.

But while the regime seeks to fend off this external danger, it appears to eliminate perceived internal threats.

More than 53,000 people have been arrested since the protests began, HRANA said in its report on Monday. The head of Iran’s judiciary, radical cleric Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi, called the protesters “terrorists” and called for accelerated sanctions.

Among the reformists who were swept aside were Azar Mansouri, the leader of the Reform Front coalition; Javad Emam, spokesperson for the reformist faction; and Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, a hostage-taker at the American embassy in Tehran in 1979 who became a critic of the regime, according to the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency.

These arrests could also be a message addressed to President Massoud Pezeshkian, close to reformers and who had initially discussed discussions with the demonstrators, analysts believe. Mansouri, Asgharzadeh and Emam were all released on bail two weeks ago, according to the student news agency.

“The reformists themselves – deprived of popular trust – no longer pose the real threat,” Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group, said in an email response to questions. “It is every structure, every network, every embryonic organizational capacity that the regime really fears. »

The number of arrests was so high that thousands of people spent at least part of their time in “black box detention sites,” off-the-grid locations such as warehouses, truck containers and storage facilities, according to Esfandiar Aban, research director at the Center for Human Rights in Iran, a New York-based advocacy group.

Detainees at black box sites, some of whom are seriously injured, do not receive medical care, do not have access to proper toilets and are not recorded in official records, increasing the risks of torture or even death, Aban said.

“We get so many text messages from people saying, ‘That’s my child’s name. We have no idea where they have been for the last 40 days,'” Aban said in a telephone interview. “It’s a terrible pressure on the family. They don’t know if they are dead or alive.”

Some detainees are tortured to obtain information about other protesters or to extract confessions, usually admitting to working with foreign governments, with these confessions often televised, according to Aban, who has documented more than 300 confessions broadcast on various state media outlets since the protests began.

The parents of some arrested protesters have also been pressured to help them obtain confessions, said Moein Khazaeli, a lawyer and human rights researcher at Dadban, a group of Iranian lawyers based abroad who offer legal advice online and have been tracking the wave of arrests.

“They will say, for example, go tell your son to confess and we will help him. Otherwise, his sentence is execution, or his sentence is 20 years in prison, or we will not release him anytime soon,” Khazaeli said, noting that other family members are also under threat of arrest.

He added: “Sometimes they arrest an inmate’s father and take him to prison, then bring the guy who is in prison to show him and say, ‘Look, we have your father, so sit down and confess.’ »

Many lawyers have been blocked from getting involved in cases, said Raeesi, the Canada-based human rights lawyer. Some who volunteered their services on social media or who represented protesters during previous waves of unrest were arrested, he said.

Doctors and other medical personnel were also arrested for providing medical care to protesters, according to human rights groups.

“The government has used different techniques to get rid of doctors who are protesting the presence of security forces or treating patients,” said Homa Fathi, a Canada-based activist and member of the International Association of Independent Physicians and Health Care Providers, who has been in contact with medical personnel in Iran and has documented arrests.

“They just wanted people to die. It’s not very complicated. They just wanted to kill people. And if you treat people, you are an obstacle in their way. It’s unfortunately as cruel and as simple as that.”

Human rights groups have documented the torture of detainees.

“Authorities have subjected detainees to torture and other ill-treatment. Those detained face serious risk of death in custody, grossly unfair trials, and secret, summary, and arbitrary executions,” Human Rights Watch said in a report Tuesday.

Torture and ill-treatment include “violent baton beatings, kicking and punching, sexual and gender-based violence, food deprivation, and psychological torture, such as threats of execution and denial of medical care to injured people,” the group said.

The regime is unlikely to end the arrests in the near future, observers say.

“The regime is using fear as its main instrument, hoping to terrify a tired nation into political hibernation,” said Vaez, of the International Crisis Group. “But fear is a brutal tool against a people who have exhausted their patience and, increasingly, their fear of consequences. »