Reports of sexual assaults on teenage prisoners in Iran emerge as families face financial demands to recover the remains of loved ones amid ongoing unrest and government crackdowns.
Iran’s prosecutor general, Mohammad Movahedi, recently claimed that the government has successfully quelled nationwide protests, which have resulted in a rising death toll of 544 and over 10,681 arrests.
Eyewitness accounts from within the country allege that sexual assaults are occurring against teenagers held in custody. Additionally, families of protesters who have been killed are reportedly being forced to pay as much as 10 billion rials to recover the bodies of their loved ones. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI-US) informed Fox News Digital that the “barbarity continues” across the nation, with claims that prison detainees are being killed and their bodies burned.
The reports surfaced as Iran’s government asserted that it had successfully suppressed weeks of unrest that began on December 28, fueled by widespread public anger over political repression, economic hardship, and state violence. The protests quickly spread across the country.
“The sedition is over now,” Movahedi stated, as reported by the judiciary’s Mizan News Agency. “And we must be grateful, as always, to the people who extinguished this sedition by being in the field in a timely manner,” he added, according to the New York Times.
These claims emerged on the 25th day of protests, during which the number of confirmed fatalities reached 4,902, with an additional 9,387 deaths still under review. The total number of arrests has escalated to 26,541, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
The France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) reported that some families have been coerced into paying substantial sums to recover the bodies of their relatives. In many instances, funeral ceremonies were conducted under heavy security in the hometowns of the deceased. Some families faced threats and pressure to falsely attribute the responsibility for the killings to the protesters themselves.
Furthermore, KHRN indicated that two protesters, including a 16-year-old, reported being sexually assaulted by Iranian security forces during their detention in Kermanshah. Eyewitnesses, as reported by NCRI’s Ali Safavi, stated that “several young women and men were forced to undress, so the military could see whether they had pellet wounds.” Safavi described the situation as one of “barbarity,” noting that when detainees were killed, their bodies were burned.
Clashes reportedly continued in several cities, including Kermanshah, where protesters engaged with armed units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Safavi noted that similar confrontations occurred in Rasht and Mashhad, asserting that the people and the regime will not revert to the status quo, even if the uprisings have slowed down. He emphasized that the blood of thousands of martyrs weighs heavily on the regime’s hands.
Despite the government’s claims of control, Safavi warned that the regime remains in power and shows no signs of abandoning its brutal and bloody suppression tactics. He stated, “there is no pathway to a velvet revolution in Iran.” He also drew attention to the shoes and sneakers left along sidewalks, symbolizing the 30,000 members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) and Iranian prisoners who were executed during the 1988 massacre under a fatwa issued by Khomeini.
As the situation in Iran continues to evolve, the international community remains watchful of the government’s actions and the ongoing plight of its citizens.
According to Fox News Digital.