Iran's Sunni Leader Raises Concern Over Prisoners Deaths
Mowlavi Abdolhamid, the Sunni Friday prayer leader in Zahedan, has expressed deep concern over the recent deaths of prisoners, including that of Javad Rouhi.
Mowlavi Abdolhamid, the Sunni Friday prayer leader in Zahedan, has expressed deep concern over the recent deaths of prisoners, including that of Javad Rouhi.
Speaking on Wednesday, Abdolhamid stated, "The sudden deaths of certain detainees, both during their incarceration and after their release, have left a profoundly negative impression on the international stage, exacerbating pessimism."
Rouhi, a prominent figure in the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, is the latest activist to have passed away in prison last week, purportedly due to a "seizure," as claimed by Iranian judicial authorities, his death echoing the tragic circumstances which led to the death of Iranian-Kurd, Mahsa Amini, in morality police custody. Her death subsequently triggered a year of uprising against the regime.
Rouhi had become one of the most prominent faces of the recent Woman, Life, Freedom movement, and had been held at the northern Nowshahr prison and initially sentenced to death, a sentence later overturned by the Supreme Court, pending re-sentencing.
Amnesty International previously documented extensive instances of severe physical and psychological abuse during the young man's detention. His death has sparked outrage among Iranians demanding action, while international human rights organizations are urging a comprehensive investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death.
Calls for a United Nations investigation and international accountability measures against the Islamic Republic regime are growing louder among human rights organizations, while activists are rallying for a declaration of public mourning and nationwide protests in Rouhi's memory.
In their comprehensive report sourced from the most recent evidence, Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) and the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) unveiled fresh insights into a series of harrowing events that unfolded during the crackdown on protests last fall and winter in the city of Javanroud (Javanrud) in western Kermanshah province.
The 100-page report, titled “Massacre in Javanrud,” is the result of an exhaustive examination of hundreds of photographs and videos, as well as interviews conducted with 38 eyewitnesses, victims' families, and individuals who were detained or injured from early October until the end of December 2022. The findings revealed disturbing accounts of tortures, severe beatings, mass detentions, and threats of sexual harassment against numerous protesters, including minors.
For several weeks after the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in mid-September, Iran's Kurdish-majority cities were also at the forefront of the protests that started with Amini’s hometown Saqqez. People in most Kurdish-populated areas in Kordestan, West Azarbaijan and Kermanshah provinces relentlessly protested and defied government forces.
The regime deployed military forces to these areas to quash the uprising, practically putting a military siege on several cities such as Javanrud. During last year’s protests, which lasted for months, over 500 people were killed by regime security forces and over 22,000 people were arrested.
According to the report, security forces intentionally shot peaceful protesters in the Kurdish city of Javanrud with military-grade weapons, killing eight unarmed civilians, including one child, and injuring at least 80 protesters.
The wounded were beaten by security forces and prevented from receiving medical care without risking arrest. About 90 people, including 26 minors, were apprehended, and detained arbitrarily. A significant number of them endured physical abuse and torture during their time in custody. Furthermore, the families of those who were injured, killed, detained, or mistreated found themselves under state pressure to maintain silence.
Calling them “crimes against humanity,” the human rights groups said the heinous acts perpetrated by the agents of the regime were committed with the full knowledge and direction of state authorities, and included “deliberate and systematic killing, maiming, and abuse of unarmed civilians on a large scale.”
The groups also called on the UN Human Rights Council’s International Independent Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran to fully investigate the events in Javanrud from October 2022 – January 2023.
“The international community should directly address the massacre and state crimes that took place in Javanrud, through every diplomatic, political, economic, and legal means available, including pursuing criminal responsibility for the perpetrators of these crimes through international courts or national judicial systems under the principle of universal jurisdiction,” the groups stressed.
Rebin Rahmani, a board member of KHRN, expressed concern about the increasing wave of arrests of Kurdish activists now taking place ahead of the anniversary of the uprising, noting that “The Islamic Republic feels there are no repercussions for their crimes in marginalized regions such as Kordestan and Sistan-Baluchestan, so it is intensifying its violent and unlawful suppression in these areas.”
CHRI executive director Hadi Ghaemi said, “As the one-year anniversary of the ‘Women Life Freedom’ protests approaches, the potential for renewed protest in Iran—and a violent state response aimed at crushing it—is high. The international community must remain extraordinarily vigilant, warning the Iranian authorities of intense political and economic consequences at the first sign of state violence.”
In anticipation of the anniversary of the protests, the Islamic Republic has intensified its intimidation campaign over the last several weeks, detaining family members of dead protesters, locking up activists, targeting community leaders, and escalating persecution of minority groups and academia.
The survey by the Netherlands-based Gamaan institute collected information from 38,445 people inside Iran about their views on media, revealing that only about 21 percent of the respondents followed the developments about Iran from the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).
This 10-day online survey titled "Iranians' Attitudes Towards Media in 1402 Persian Calendar Year” (started March 21), targeted literate individuals aged 19 and above, a sample from 90% of the country's adult population. GAMAAN, the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran, is an independent, non-profit research foundation, focused on Iranians’ attitudes towards social and political topics.
The survey explored key indicators such as the "most popular channel," the "most trustworthy channel according to the audience," and the "primary source for following news of protests in Mahsa's movement." The results indicate that more than half of the respondents consider Iran International as their primary source of information and news about Iran.
Iran International leads the pack with 54% cited as "often" or "sometimes" following the media outlet. Manoto TV garnered 42%, BBC Persian" 37%, IRIB 36%, and Voice of America Persian 34%. Additionally, about 32% claim to occasionally or more frequently watch Jam-e-Jam (the international bundle of IRIB channels) and 30% tune into MBC Persia. On the other hand, 48% of the population have stated that they never watch or listen to programs on the state broadcaster.
When asked, "Which media outlets did you primarily follow for news about recent protests in Iran?" 57% indicated they followed news from Iran International, 30% from Manoto, 26% from BBC Persian, and 20% from Voice of America. Approximately 19% also received news about the protests from the IRIB, the state broadcaster tightly reflecting the views of the regime's hardliners.
In response to a question regarding the level of trust in media outlets, 50% express "a great deal" or "some" confidence in Iran International, 44% in Manoto, 42% in Voice of America, 40% in Radio Farda, and 34% in BBC Persian. On the other hand, only about 21% of the population trust state-run IRIB, while 59% have stated that they have "no trust at all" in the regime’s broadcaster.
According to the results of this survey, 68% of the population "often" use social media networks for obtaining information and news about Iran and the world, while 35% are viewers of satellite channels, 12% rely on state broadcaster IRIB, and 8% tune into foreign radio for the news.
Among social media platforms, approximately 65% of the population "often" use Instagram, 46% use WhatsApp, 43% use Telegram, 17% use YouTube, 8% use domestic app Rubika, 8% use Twitter, 5% use Facebook, 3% use state-run platform Soroush, and 2% use Clubhouse for their online activities. All international social media platforms are blocked Iran, with people using VPNs to circumvent the censorship.
IRIB is tightly controlled by the office of Iran’s authoritarian ruler Ali Khamenei and has been losing its audience with its heavy religious programming and heavily censored news and biased programs. Critics say it is nothing but a propaganda tool with a hefty government subsidy of at least $600 million and no accountability.
In June, the regime took one more step to tighten its control over entertainment content in line with its policy of enforcing religious restrictions on the population, gaining full control over content shown by privately-owned streaming services based on a decision taken by Iran's Supreme Cultural Revolution Council.
Streaming services such as Filimo, an online video on demand (VOD) service like Netflix, have gained great popularity in Iran where there are no privately-owned television networks. These services provided an opportunity for independent and sometimes dissident filmmakers and artists to showcase their work. The head of the state broadcaster (IRIB), hardliner Payman Jebelli, in a letter to President Ebrahim Raisi in January demanded that Filimo be blocked on the internet.
Earlier this year, NGO Reporters Sans Frontiers, ranked Iran 177/180 nations for press freedom, citing the arrest of 70 Iranian journalists since the death of Mahsa Amini as one example of the regime's crackdown on voices of dissent. Iran International's reporters were threatened earlier this year by IRGC and intelligence (MOIS) agents, forcing some to relocate from London to Washington amidst security threats. Iranian journalists abroad have also been deluged with threats to their lives.
This year's Freedom House report on global freedoms also ranked Iran 12th in the 100 least free countries in the world.
