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Revealed: Gruesome details of brutal Iranian torture against its own citizens

New Amnesty International report details torture, executions of Iranians arrested for protesting against the Islamic regime.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

Amnesty International released a damning new report Wednesday that details how the Iranian government brutally tortured, abused and even executed Iranian citizens who took part in nationwide protests against government policies.

Violent protests erupted throughout Iran last November in response to the regime’s decision to double the price of gasoline. Hundreds of Iranians were shot and killed during the protests and hundreds more were arrested and jailed for expressing their opposition to government policies.

“In the days following the mass protests, videos showing Iran’s security forces deliberately killing and injuring unarmed protesters and bystanders sent shockwaves around the world,” the Amnesty report said. “Much less visible has been the catalogue of cruelty meted out to detainees and their families by Iranian officials away from the public eye.”

The Amnesty report describes with gruesome details what it called a “torture epidemic” conducted by Iran’s police, intelligence forces, security forces and prison officials.

Hundreds of Iranians were tortured including beatings, floggings, electric shocks, mock executions, waterboarding, sexual violence, forced administration of chemical substances, and deprivation of medical care.

Amnesty says the “catalogue of shocking human rights violations” was carried out with the complicity of judges and prosecutors in a government-administered “campaign of mass repression” in which 7,000 men, women and children as young as 10 were arrested by the Iranian authorities.

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The victims included not just injured protesters but also innocent bystanders who Iranian police arrested at hospitals while they were seeking medical care for gunshot wounds.

Authorities also rounded up human rights defenders, journalists and even people who attended memorial ceremonies for those shot and killed by Iranian police during the protests.

Hundreds of Iranians were sentenced to prison terms and flogging, while several were executed following what Amnesty called “grossly unfair trials which were presided over by biased judges behind closed doors, frequently lasted less than an hour, and systematically relied on torture-tainted “confessions.”

Since the 1979 revolution that established the regime of the ayatollahs, Iran has been ranked as one of the worst countries in the world for human rights abuses. The organization Reporters Without Borders has examined Iran’s record closely and calls it “one of the world’s most repressive countries.”

Iran is known as an exporter of terrorism and sponsors and supports terrorist groups around the Middle East including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, both of which echo the Iranian doctrine calling for the destruction of Israel.

The Amnesty report comes after the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Iran issued a report last year describing human rights abuses ranging from religious persecution and suppression of women’s rights to the execution of children. Following that report the United Nations approved a resolution condemning Iran for its systematic policies of “discrimination and other human rights violations.”