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Six months after hundreds of protesters and civilians were killed by unlawful force during the November 2019 protests in Iran, authorities have yet to provide the families of protesters with answers about their loved ones’ death. Instead, the families have had to settle for proposals of money and “martyrdom.” The families of Shabnam Diani, Azadeh Zarbi, and Farzad Ansarifar were threatened as a mean to force them into silence.
Regime officials pressured several families of protesters killed in November to acknowledge that their loved ones were “martyrs” and to take money in exchange for their silence.
Shabnam Dayani was among the protesters in the nationwide uprising in Shiraz, in November 2019. She was killed on November 16, 2019. Shabnam Dayani and 12 others were run over by the vehicles of the IRGC-paramilitary force, the Bassij. The Bassij agents subsequently opened fire on all of them.
According to an eyewitness, when Shabnam’s parents went to collect their daughter’s body, authorities threatened them and instructed them to give interviews in which they would declare their daughter’s death an accident.
In an interview published on social media, Azadeh Zarbi’s family described the days after Azadeh’s death as follows:
“The first day at the hospital, she was right there in front of us, and we went home in the middle of the night. The next day, [hospital officials] said they had delivered the body to the coroner’s office in Tehran. They [the coroner’s office in Tehran] denied it for two days and said they did not have such a person. Then they sent us to the Kahrizak coroner, who said that such a person is not here. From there, we were sent to the coroner in Ghaleh Hassan Khan (Qods), but they also said that there was no such person.
We finally found a family member at a coroner’s office who said the body had been transferred to the Shahriar coroner.”
Azadeh Zarbi’s parents insist that they did not accept payment for the bullets that killed their daughter. But to retrieve the body, they had to make written commitments.
According to the family, “We pledged not to form a crowd, not to mourn, not to connect with the families of other deceased protesters, and not to speak to the media. After we made these commitments, we were allowed to have six people attend the funeral. The [security forces?] chose the cemetery themselves, at the farthest point of the Kamalshahr. They even chose the plot at the cemetery where she was to be buried. During the funeral and the burial ceremonies, the plainclothes officers who were in attendance kept reminding the family to “control themselves.”
Even when the body was delivered to the cemetery, two female officers came and sat next to Azadeh’s mother. They didn’t let her speak, and no one was allowed to talk to her.”
Azadeh Zarbi’s family went to the police station to file a complaint. But they were told that state security forces had not fired [against their relative]. They didn’t say, ‘we weren’t there;’ they said, ‘the person who fired was not one of our agents.’ They forced the family to pledge in writing not to talk about this with anyone.
Farzaneh Ansarifar also spoke of being threatened as a way of securing her silence about her brother’s martyrdom in the 2019 uprising.
Families of Protesters Killed in November Pressured to Keep Silent
“40 days after Farzad’s death, strangers set fire to my house and car while Farzad’s death notice was still on the wall.”
Farzad Ansarifar, a 27-year-old construction worker, was killed during the nationwide protests on November 16 in the city of Behbahan in Khuzestan Province.
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Earlier, FATA Police Chief Turaj Kazemi stated that it is a crime to publish personal images of women with improper clothing in social media (The state-run Asre Pouya website – May 19, 2020). Ali Khamenei the Iranian regime's supreme leader issued a fatwa in 2016 and banned women from bicycling in public and in front of strangers. He said: “Riding a bicycle often attracts the attention of men and exposes society to corruption, thereby contravening women’s chastity, and it must be abandoned” (The state-run media, September 10, 2016).
In response to the question of whether it is a crime to publish personal images with inappropriate clothing (unveiled or improper veil) in cyberspace, the FATA Police Chief in Tehran responded, “It is up to the judicial authority to determine whether or not the act is criminal. Based on their duty, the police will provide documents to the judicial authorities; if it is considered a crime, the offenders will be dealt with.”
The Iranian regime is getting prepared to suppress the inevitable uprising in Iran.
Fearing a popular uprising, the Iranian regime has increased its crackdown on women on social media. Internal repression, and suppression of women in particular, is among the main pillars of maintaining a chokehold on power for mullahs.
The regime’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei had said in a gathering in Mashhad on July 21, 2016, “Any debate on the compulsory or voluntary nature of Hijab (women’s veil) is a deviation.”
In another development, Tehran’s Commander of the State Security Force, reiterated the ban on issuing licenses for women for riding motorcycles.
Regarding women seeking motorcycle licenses,Hossein Rahimi said, “We do not decide, and issuing motorcycle licenses for women is not within the authority of the police. The law does not currently allow this to happen” (The state-run Asre-Iran website – May 17, 2020).
Iranian women have already been banned from riding bicycles.
Ali Khamenei issued a ridiculous fatwa in 2016 that banned women from bicycling in public and in front of strangers.
He said: “Riding a bicycle often attracts the attention of men and exposes society to corruption, thereby contravening women’s chastity, and it must be abandoned” (The state-run media, September 10, 2016).
In 2016, Yousef Tabatabaei, Khamenei’s representative in Isfahan, said that women’s cycling is considered villainy, and is considered a violation of the same seriousness as drug offenses. (The state-run Aftab website – May 14, 2016)
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Security forces in the city of Nowshahr arrested Mojgan Kavousi, Kurdish author and researcher, on May 19, 2020, and transferred her to the Prison of Nowshahr to serve her three-year sentence.
Ms. Kavousi was first arrested on November 18, 2019 and taken to the detention center of the IRGC Intelligence in Sari, capital of Mazandaran Province in northern Iran. Later, on December 10, she was transferred to the Prison of Nowshahr.
Mojgan Kavousi has been jailed at a time when all Iranian prisons are hotspots during the COVID-19 outbreak. Mazandaran Province has had 2640 affected cases by Tuesday, May 19, 2020.
In a similar development, Shora Fekri, former student activist of the University of Mazandaran, was summoned to serve her five-month jail sentence. Ms. Fekri had been initially arrested on January 12, 2020, during a protest in the city of Amol against the IRGC’s downing of a Ukrainian passenger aircraft.
The Appeals Court of Kermanshah Province also upheld a one-year sentence for the Kurdish civil activist Farzaneh Jalali. She had been sentenced to one year in prison by the Revolutionary Court of Kermanshah in November 2019 on the charge of “propaganda against the state.”
Farzaneh Jalali was initially arrested by agents of the Intelligence Department of Kermanshah on February 23, 2017. She was detained for 17 days in the detention center of the Intelligence Department, and subsequently transferred to the women’s ward of the Prison of Kermanshah. She had been released on a bail of 300 million tomans on March 12, 2017.
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Political prisoner Sakineh Parvaneh was returned to Iranian Qarchak Prison in Varamin on Saturday, May 16. She had been transferred to the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp) Intelligence Detention Center (Ward 2A, Evin Prison) on May 9, and interrogated for a full week. During the interrogation, security guards beat her severely. Sakineh was arrested by the Ministry of Intelligence on February 7, and detained in Ward 209 of Evin Prison. She was interrogated for 10 days in Ward 209 of Evin Prison, where she was held in solitary confinement. She was later transferred to the women’s ward at Evin, where she scrawled anti-regime slogans on the walls, for which she was punished. Prison guards beat her while her hands and feet were bound. She was later sent into exile in Qarchak Prison.After four days of solitary confinement in Qarchak, Ms. Parvaneh was transferred to Aminabad Psychiatric Hospital in Shahr-e-Rey.
The interrogator set her bail at 50 million Tomans – an amount her family cannot afford, so Ms. Parvaneh has remained in custody.
The regime routinely sends political prisoners to psychiatric hospitals under the pretext of mental illness. This is a common method of repressing both political prisoners and their family members.
Political prisoner Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee sent a letter from Qarchak Prison, revealing that the regime is putting greater pressure on two Kurdish political prisoners by transferring them to this notorious facility.
“Since being transferred to Qarchak Prison, Sakineh Parvaneh has been taken to the Aminabad Mental Hospital several times, where she has been further pressured and brutalized. All this indicates violations of human rights,” Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee wrote in her letter.
