The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
HRC Press Conference: Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran - 14 March 2025
/
49:11
/
MP4
/
2.9 GB
Press Conferences , Edited News | HRC , OHCHR
HRC Press Conference: Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran - 14 March 2025
STORY: Iran – Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran
TRT: 03:12”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 14 March 2025 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Speakers:
- Sara Hossain, Chair of the Iran Fact-Finding Mission
- Shaheen Sardar Ali, Expert Member of the Fact-Finding Mission
SHOTLIST
- Exterior medium shot: Palais des Nations, Flag Alley.
- Wide shot of the Fact-Finding Mission on the podium at UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Sara Hossain, Chair of the Iran Fact-Finding Mission: “Our report set out a road map on truth, accountability, justice and reparations. They include our consolidated findings from two years of investigations. These reaffirm that in repressing the 2022 nationwide protests, State authorities in Iran committed gross human rights violations, some of which the Mission found to have amounted to crimes against humanity.”
- Medium shot of podium speakers, photographer.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Sara Hossain, Chair of the Iran Fact-Finding Mission: “We gathered evidence of unnecessary and unlawful use of force against children, both girls and boys, and we heard many harrowing accounts of harsh physical and psychological torture and a wide range of serious fair trial and due process violations committed against children, including some as young as seven years old.”
- Medium-wide, Press room, TV screens with speaker, control booths.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Sara Hossain, Chair of the Iran Fact-Finding Mission: “We also deepened our investigations into the situation of ethnic and religious minorities, finding that they had been specially targeted in the context of the protests and that some of the most egregious violations were carried out in peak protest towns in minority-populated regions.”
- Medium-wide, speakers, journalists, participants.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Sara Hossain, Chair of the Iran Fact-Finding Mission: “We found that detainees - men, women and children - had been held, in some cases at gunpoint, or had nooses put around their necks in a form of psychological torture.”
- Medium-wide, Press room, podium speakers, TV screens showing speaker.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Shaheen Sardar Ali, Expert Member of the Fact-Finding Mission: “Surveillance online was a critical tool for State repression. Instagram accounts, for instance, were shut down and SIM cards confiscated in particular of human rights defenders, including women, human rights defenders.”
- Medium-wide, Press room, participants, journalists, TV screens showing speaker.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Shaheen Sardar Ali, Expert Member of the Fact-Finding Mission: “We found an alarming pattern of systematic repression and silencing of victims and their families, including through summons, detentions and prosecutions, and preventing them from commemorating the deaths of their loved ones with violence escalating during the anniversary of the protests, both in 2023 and 2024.”
- Medium-wide, Press room, participants, journalists, TV screens showing speaker.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Shaheen Sardar Ali, Expert Member of the Fact-Finding Mission: “Persecutory conduct extends to those who have acted in solidarity, such as human rights defenders, lawyers, teachers, trade unionists and journalists, compelling many to leave Iran.”
- Medium, podium speakers, participants, photographer, TV screen showing speaker.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Shaheen Sardar Ali, Expert Member of the Fact-Finding Mission: “Nazer app, which is a particular app that the Government has instituted, where after vetting, sort of normal citizens can also complain - file a complaint - against someone who's just passed by and hasn't got the mandatory hijab. So this technology that's being used for surveillance is really very far reaching and highly intrusive.”
- Medium, photographer.
- Medium-wide, photographer, participants, journalists.
- Medium, photographer.
Iran protests: Human Rights Council probe condemns surveillance repression
The Iranian Government has continued to ramp up efforts to restrict the rights of civilians including young children as part of a concerted effort to crush dissent, investigators mandated by the Human Rights Council insisted on Friday.
In their latest and final report, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran alleged ongoing serious rights violations by the Iranian authorities stemming from massive protests after the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September 2022.
Ms. Amini, from the Iranian Kurdish community, had been arrested by the country’s “morality police” for allegedly not complying with rules around wearing the hijab.
“In repressing the 2022 nationwide protests, State authorities in Iran committed gross human rights violations, some of which the Mission found to have amounted to crimes against humanity,” said Sara Hossain, Chair of the Iran Fact-Finding Mission. “We heard many harrowing accounts of harsh physical and psychological torture and a wide range of serious fair trial and due process violations committed against children, including some as young as seven years old.”
Since April 2024, the State has increased criminal prosecution against women who defy the mandatory hijab through the adoption of the so-called “Noor plan.”
“Women human rights defenders and activists have continued to face criminal sanctions, including fines, lengthy prison sentences, and in some cases the death penalty for peaceful activities in support of human rights,” the Mission asserted.
Speaking in Geneva on the sidelines of the Human Rights Council, Ms. Hossain noted that Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities “had been specially targeted in the context of the protests”, with “some of the most egregious violations…carried out in peak protest towns in minority-populated regions”.
Testimonies gathered inside and outside Iran for the report which has been shared with the Iranian Government pointed to men, women and children being held “in some cases at gunpoint” with “nooses put around their necks in a form of psychological torture”.
The Mission – which comprises senior human rights experts acting in an independent capacity – noted that these measures “come despite pre-election assurances” by President Masoud Pezeshkian to ease the strict enforcement of mandatory hijab laws.
This enforcement increasingly relies on technology, surveillance and even State-sponsored “vigilantism”, the investigators maintained.
“Surveillance online was a critical tool for State repression. Instagram accounts, for instance, were shut down and SIM cards confiscated in particular of human rights defenders, including women, human rights defenders,” explained Shaheen Sardar Ali from the Mission.
Ms. Ali pointed to the use of the “Nazer” mobile application “which is a particular app that the Government has instituted, where after vetting, normal citizens can also complain - file a complaint - against someone who's just passed by and hasn't got the mandatory hijab. So, this technology that's being used for surveillance is really very far-reaching and highly intrusive.”
According to the Fact-Finding Mission, 10 men have been executed in the context of the 2022 protests and at least 11 men and three women remain at risk of being executed, amid “serious concerns over the adherence to the right to a fair trial, including the use of torture tainted confessions, and due process violations”.
The Mission’s report will be presented to Member States at the Human Rights Council next Tuesday.
ends
Teleprompter
[Other language spoken]
Good afternoon, everyone.
Thank you for joining us here at this press conference, conference with the independent International Fact Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose members are here to share with you the findings of their latest report.
As you may know, the Human Rights Council established the Fact Finding Mission in November of 2022 to investigate alleged human rights violations related to the protest that began in September of 2022, especially with respect to women and children.
The Mission released its report today and which will be presented to the Council next week.
We're pleased to have with us all three members of the Fact Finding Mission.
[Other language spoken]
In the centre, we have the chair, Sarah Hossein, to my right, Shaheen Sardar Ali and on my far right, Viviana Kristi Savage.
So with that, we'll begin and the chair will deliver opening remarks followed by our fellow experts and then we'll open the floor to questions.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Sorry about that.
[Other language spoken]
My name is Sarah Hussain and I'm the Chair of the Independent International Fact Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran.
As you heard, I'm joined by my fellow members, Professor Shaheen Saldar Ali and Viviana Kristychevich.
I will outline what we've done over the last year to consolidate our investigation into the protests that broke out on the 16th of September 2022 in Iran.
My colleagues will then speak to the current situation and what has changed, and then on accountability in next steps.
This morning we released our second report to the Human Rights Council, which we will present next week to the Council in an interactive dialogue.
We will also release our detailed findings in the form of a conference from paper.
Over the course of the last year, our team has collected new material and strengthened the evidence for our previous findings.
In total, we've now collected over 38,000 evidence items and interviewed 285 victims and witnesses.
We've also extensively reviewed information from the Government of Iran, including that which is in the public domain, and we've now examined incidents across 17 provinces in the country.
We've preserved all of this evidence in line with our mandate, and we'll make that available to credible legal proceedings whenever and wherever they occur.
Our report set out a road map on truth, accountability, justice, and reparations.
They include our consolidated findings from 2 years of investigations.
These reaffirm that in repressing the 2022 nationwide protests, state authorities in Iran committed gross human rights violations, some of which the mission found to have amounted to crimes against humanity.
This includes evidence in relation to the unlawful use of force, torture and I'll treatment, arbitrary arrest and detention, sexual and gender based violence, including ****, and serious fair trial violations.
This year we received information from the Government of Iran Appointed Special Committee on the 2022 unrest.
Some of this related to accountability measures which they stated have been taken domestically.
They've referred to 621 judicial cases filed against law enforcement officials, of which they mentioned that 563 cases have culminated in judicial rulings.
However, the committee has not provided us with the detailed breakdown of the number of criminal convictions or acquittals, or of administrative measures, or of the amounts of compensation paid to victims.
They also have not explained to us the crimes to which these complaints related.
In light of our mandate, we have significantly strengthened our evidence on the treatment of children, ethnic and religious minorities, and LGBTQ plus persons in the context of the protests.
With respect to children, we gathered evidence of unnecessary and unlawful use of force against children, both girls and boys, and we heard many harrowing accounts of harsh physical and psychological torture and a wide range of serious fair trial and due process violations committed against children, including some as young as seven years old.
We concluded that the security forces, as well as some members of the judiciary, made little or no distinction between the treatment of children and adults.
We also deepened our investigations into the situation of ethnic and religious minorities, finding that they had been specially targeted in the context of the protests and that some of the most egregious violations were carried out in peak protest towns in minority populated regions.
We also found that LGBTQ plus persons amongst the protests were targeted again for their real or perceived sexual orientation and identity.
There were two new areas of investigation this year.
One concerned the disturbing pattern of deaths of some protesters, including girl children, which the state dismissed as cases of suicide.
These cases were particularly difficult to investigate, but we found that they all followed similar patterns with judicial harassment of families, including actions to prevent them from mourning their loved ones, and denial of men of the allegations and and an absence of detailed investigations.
Another new area for US related to the frequent use of mock executions.
We found that detainees, men, women and children had been held in some cases at gunpoint or had nooses put around their necks in a form of psychological torture.
We further strengthened our evidence regarding patterns of transnational repression, including threats and intimidation and attempted assassination of human rights defenders, including journalists, victims and their families abroad.
We concluded that Iran's repression of the protest was far reaching and transcended its own borders.
I'll turn now to my colleague, Professor Sardar Ali.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
I'm going to speak about our I'm going to speak about our investigations into continuing violations against victims and survivors and their families in the aftermath of the protests.
I will also speak about major shifts in policies and practises impacting women and girls as well as protesters.
During this last year, we found an alarming pattern of systematic repression and silencing of victims and their families, including through summons, detentions and prosecutions, and preventing them from commemorating the deaths of their loved ones.
With violence escalating during the anniversary of the protests, both in 2023 and 2024, persecutory conduct extends to those who have acted in solidarity, such as human rights defenders, lawyers, teachers, trade unionists and journalists, compelling many to leave Iran.
10 men have been executed so far and another 11 men and three women are at imminent risk of execution.
There has been an alarming increase in the use of the death penalty, a three fold increase from 2021, which is the year before the protests.
Executions were carried out amidst credible reports of gross fair trial violations including torture tainted confessions.
A new and worrying trend is the death sentences against women, including for their activism.
This includes the cases of Paksha Nazizi and Sharifay Mohammadi, who are at imminent risk of execution, as well as Varishe Muradi, whose request for review is pending before Iran's Supreme Court.
Digital space was another critical arena for protesters.
Equally, surveillance online was a critical tool for state repression.
Instagram accounts, for instance, were shut down and SIM cards confiscated, in particular of human rights defenders, including women human rights defenders.
Together, these actions demonstrate the concerted persistent state effort to stifle dissent, perpetuating a climate of fear and systematic impunity that denies victims the rights to truth, justice, accountability, and reparations regarding structural discrimination against women and girls.
Despite the pre election promises by the President to ease the state in strict enforcement, the state has ramped up the enforcement of mandatory hijab laws and policies.
While a new law is spending consideration, its provisions have already started to be applied with increased deployment of police and of so-called ambassadors of kindness deployed by the IRGC to enforce the mandatory hijab in public places.
At least two women and one man have been subjected to flogging for violating these laws or advocating for their repeal.
In the last year, we have also seen the chilling enhancing of surveillance through apps, drones and the use of facial recognition technology with thousands of women having their cars impounded and many more being made to pay exorbitant fees.
[Other language spoken]
And I'll hand over to my colleague Viviano Kristochevic.
[Other language spoken]
Building up on the missions first report and accompanying conference room paper, we have taken the time this second mandate to provide further guidance on reparations and accountability avenues to ensure that victims, survivors and the people of Iran have sufficient guarantees of their rights and that measures of non repetition, including structural measures, are adopted to prevent further violations.
We took steps to consult with many victims about their expectations.
We also talked to experts to enrich the legal principles and the diverse experiences that would support our recommendations.
Moreover, following our mandate and standard practise from other investigative bodies, we collected and systematised information on the evidence on the human rights and criminal law responsibility of entities and individuals.
In our reports, we have reaffirmed that structural discrimination in law and practise against women is the root cause and the trigger for the gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity that occurred in the context of the state response to the protest linked to the Woman Life Freedom Movement.
Consequently, we outlined some of the structural measures needed to ensure that violations do not repeat themselves.
As a result, we highlighted the need to do profound legal reforms to ensure the inclusive and equal participation of women in public life to guarantee all rights for all women.
And amongst the measures, the legal measures that we thought were crucial were the rejection of the mandatory hijab law and the lifting of restrictions so that women can fully participate in public office, including in the judiciary, in an equal footing with men.
We have reiterated to the Government of Iran the need to release all persons arbitrarily detained for exercising their freedoms of expression and freedom of assembly, and to stop the application of the death penalty against protesters and human rights defenders.
The FFM also recommended measures to the international community, including the support of victims through medical and trauma treatment, memorialisation and truth telling initiatives, the establishment of funds for victims including with the proceeds of pros and assets of individuals, amongst others.
On accountability, we did not take this task lightly.
The FFM went to great lengths to establish whether domestic remedies were in place and accessible to victims and concluded that chronic impunity persists.
Victims have, for the large part, not obtained justice, truth or received reparations, as already mentioned by the Chair.
Additionally, we have documented many instances in which victims and their families are harassed domestically and abroad when searching for accountability or justice.
Moreover, we gathered and systematised evidence pointing to human rights and criminal responsibility of individuals and entities involved in gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity, linked to the patterns and incidents documented in our report.
Finally, in light of the gravity of our findings, we have recommended that the Human Rights Council continue to retain attention on the situation of human rights in Iran, including by creating a follow up body to carry on on the work of the fact finding mission on Iran.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Now we'll open the floor to questions if we have any from the room.
[Other language spoken]
If you could just please identify yourself in the media outlet that you work for sure.
[Other language spoken]
One thing that that jumped out from your report was about the, the use of technology and, and how technology is being used not to not to liberate people's lives, but to bring about surveillance and, and repression, as your report says.
Could you talk a little bit more about about that aspect and, and how you see that aspect to developing over time?
Yeah, we've seen this is absolutely critical because obviously digital space has been crucial for was crucial for protesters to express their opinions at the time of the protest in 22/20/22 and onwards.
And as a consequence, we've also seen that that's been the space in which that surveillance and restriction of speech has been quite massively engaged in by the government.
Some of the things that we've seen are, for example, using compelling Iranians to use national apps, for example, rather than being able to use anything that's on the international platform.
And part of that is a way of also continuing surveillance on individuals.
We've also seen extensive trolling and surveillance of individual activists during the time of the protests.
And subsequently we've used, as my colleague mentioned, we've seen how facial recognition technology is now being used to track women who are not complying with the mandatory hijab rules.
And we've seen massive thousands of women being affected by that, being fined, some women having their cars impounded.
[Other language spoken]
So the consequences and restrictions in online space spillover quite significantly into offline or real lives as well.
I just add as an example, the Nazar app, which is a particular app that the government has instituted where not where after vetting sort of normal citizens can also complain, file a complaint against someone who's just passed by and hasn't got the mandatory hijab.
So this technology that's being used for surveillance is really very far reaching and highly intrusive.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
We have first Gabriela Sutomayor.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much for the briefing.
2 questions, may I First is, how are you going to make sure that women in Iran have access to this report?
Is there any strategy that you are thinking about?
And secondly, you just mentioned that.
Well, I asked the second question after.
[Other language spoken]
So one of the advantages and the beautiful things of issuing A mandated report at the Human Rights Council is that it gets translated into many languages, including Farsi, and that breaks one of the barriers of access to the information.
We are also using different tools such as infographics and and videos that we will be releasing next week in order to create bytes of information that would help the general public being formed about the content of their report and some of the road map for reparations and accountability in the country.
Moreover, many in in Iran resort to the digital space for for their activists in inside and outside the country.
And that creates A vibrant community that circulates information and also creates their own pieces of information and releases and and videos and infographics in order to to elaborate and dissect and interpret what it is in in many ways a very technical document.
May I just add that for the benefit of the ethnic minorities, the infographics, the Instagram news is going to be translated into Kurdish and Baluchi languages as well.
And so because some of our Baluchi and Kurdish people on the ground may not be they may be non literate.
And so therefore the info graphics and the the the the videos and snippets that are most sound based will probably help with access.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
We go to the back.
[Other language spoken]
Hi, my name is Matthew, I'm Level House News Agency.
[Other language spoken]
In your report you primarily focused on the action of the Iranian government.
Government however, in meeting with other stakeholder in geopolitical discussion you ask you ask, you ask knowledge that certain group also contributed to the escalation of violence in Iran and that peaceful demonstration were hijacked by group sponsored by foreign states.
How do you reconcile the border contest content with the narrative in the report?
Do you believe your report fully reflected the complexity, complexity of situation?
We were mandate as you know to look into the situation regarding the protests that broke out in September 22.
And there was very specific reference in the mandate to looking in particular at the situation of women and girls.
And that's what we tried to focus on.
So we've and the extension of our mandate also we, we continue to look at the same kind of scope.
So I from what I understood of your question, are you asking us whether we were looking into the, the security situation in Iran?
Is that is that correct?
Is that what you're asking?
Sorry, I couldn't completely follow it.
Could we, could we just ask the question to repeat that, please?
Could you, could you repeat the, the principal part of your question, please?
No, I say are you in the report about status, other, other country and other group in about problem, next problem?
Last year we didn't look into the situation of other countries.
We were looking into the situation in Iran and the impact of the protests on people in Iran or from Iran.
We did look into the situation of Iranis who had been compelled to leave the country and go abroad because of the repression that they faced.
We also looked in the context of the analysis of what happened in some of the minority populated areas.
We we did look at reports and we made some findings that there were some, some, there were some groups, armed groups that were present at some of the protest sites.
But we also found that the protests were largely peaceful.
And so there was not enough.
There was not really justification for the disproportionate use of force against protesters in those areas.
That was specifically in relation to the incident of the ****** Friday incident in Zaidan in September 22.
[Other language spoken]
Let's go to another question online from Jamie Keaton from The Associated Press.
Thank you so much for your presentation and your report.
Very interesting.
I wanted to just see I Robin kind of took my question about the, the, the use of technology as a surveillance tool and, and thank you very much for the comments about the the Nazer app.
I just wanted to see if you could sort of more generally just describe the kind of evolution that we have seen in sort of your own words, off the cuff, if you will, about the, you know, the evolution that you've seen since the protests began in September 2022 in terms of the the situation for women and girls and the discrimination that they faced.
And particularly with the use of what you call a state sponsored vigilantism.
How, how does that, how is that generally, maybe this question is for Ms Hussain, just how has that generally evolved over the last, what, 2 1/2 years or so?
[Other language spoken]
Thank you, thank you for the question.
I mean, I think the overall evolution we've seen is we saw it sort of these, the extreme use of force, extreme and unnecessary and disproportionate use of force to crush the protests back from September 22 onwards, pretty much up until December.
A little bit after that, we also saw massive arrests and detentions, use of torture, use of sexual and gender based violence.
We mapped all of that in those first few months after the protests broke out.
And then round about December, January, we saw those executions taking place as well of of 10 protesters.
And that had an enormous chilling effect, I think, on the protests across the country.
And what we've seen in the period since then, since about January 23 onwards is a, is a slightly different pattern playing out where the protests have not been on that large scale that that took place at that time.
There have been sporadic and further protests ongoing, but we've seen the response of the state being to to repress, essentially try to first of all, on the one hand, deny many of the allegations of violations and the longer allegations we've made findings of, of serious violations, of gross human rights violations.
And as you know, last year we also made findings of crimes against humanity.
But what we found is that the the denial, the construction of an alternative narrative, and the repression and silencing not only of protesters, but also the victims, the witnesses, their family members and people who acted in solidarity with them or tried to support them.
So lawyers, journalists, teachers, trade unionists and others.
And what you mentioned about the vigilantism or the engagement of, of vigilantism by the state.
We've particularly seen that in relation to the, the continuing enforcement of the, of the mandatory hijab rules with on the one hand, the the Revolutionary Guards have this group called Ambassadors of kindness.
On the other hand, with this NASA rap, as you just heard about from my colleague, individual vetted individuals are able to enter information about women who are violating the so-called mandatory hijab rules into this app.
And that information goes directly to the police who then can, who then will take action against those women with warnings, with fines, ultimately with impounding of cars and so on.
So those are some of the ways that we've seen things happen.
We've also seen incidents of the past two years where again, individual members of the public took action against women for violating mandatory hijab rules and so on.
So I think we've seen this trajectory play out from extreme, you know, extreme violence and and so on in the those the months when the protest was at its peak to now a kind of a silencing and repression that's ongoing.
[Other language spoken]
All right, let's take another question online from Laurence Ciero.
Ciero from the Swiss News Agency.
Yeah, thanks Scott and thanks for the press conference.
In the report you point out the role of the current president and the fact that he didn't fulfil the pre electoral commitments he he he had done.
So how would you qualify that?
Is it complicity of crimes against humanity because in the sense it's perpetuating the systematic violations again against women?
And next and then the the second question would be why don't you ask for a renewal of your fact finding mission and and and rather a new follow up mechanism?
And what would be the the format that you would that would you would you would recommend for that follow up mechanism?
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
As as you have seen, we have noted that the current President has made statements that are, that are very important and in intending to make legal and policy changes, those have not come to fruition.
And consequently based on the information, the overall information that we have gathered on, on the conduct of all state entities in Iran, we have established that there are still human rights violations that are continuous in the country.
There is a a persecutory conduct that has been established in the previous report and that that has continued on, on the establishment of a new mission.
We have proposed a new fact finding mission because we believe, based on the on the investigations of the protests that we have made, that we had carried on with, with our mandate and with the tasks that the Human Rights Council has given to us.
But in investigating the patterns and circumstances and in in looking at the responses of the state to to some of the human rights violations, we understood that a brother lens would be more fruitful to address different types of human rights violations that we have encountered that have fallen outside of our mandate.
We have made specific recommendations on how do we believe that that mandate should follow and and what is the content of the mandate and we suggested that it looks at the root causes of violations that it includes a focus on on women and and girls.
We have also asked for for the Council to consider looking at freedom of expression and assembly at harassment of human rights defenders, add aspects of equal access to justice and public life dealing not only with women and girls, but also with different types of minorities, including ethnic and religious minorities.
And, and we have suggested as well that the body would still be an investigative body that would be able to document profoundly these trends and, and their root causes and, and address the need to, to collect evidence on individual perpetrators and, and entities with, with the view of cooperating with legal proceedings.
So that has been the, the overall recommendation that we had.
We had a very narrow temporal mandate as well.
And so it was a thematic mandate that was narrow and a temporal mandate that was narrow.
And we believe that it would be better to have not not have those constraints.
[Other language spoken]
We have a couple of follow-ups online.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
My question is if you have the opportunity to discuss this report with the government of Iran and also if you have any evidence of Russian soldiers during the, the, the manifestation, you know, the, the use of force during the, the, the protests.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Yes, we shared the report with the government, Iran as is standard practise prior to issuing it.
And no, we don't have any evidence about, we've not found any information about the involvement of Russian forces during the protests.
[Other language spoken]
Follow up from Laurence Ciero.
[Other language spoken]
Thanks for the the responses.
But I'd like to come back to my first question about the the president because so.
[Other language spoken]
So you mentioned the commitments that he made before the elections.
And then you mentioned that climate of ongoing persecutory conduct.
What is missing to me is the connection between the two.
So what, what how do you qualify the role of the president in all that affair?
And would it be exaggerated to, to to talk about complicity of crimes against humanity?
[Other language spoken]
Well, we've looked at specific entities, the police, the morality police, the IRGC, the Ministry of Intelligence, various security councils, the prison system and those elements of the judiciary.
And we have looked into the role of those particular entities and we have made some findings regarding their involvement in the suppression and repression of the protests.
So you'll, you'll find that in our report.
And we are awaiting some more information, in fact also about the government we run in this connection.
So we may, we may make some further findings.
Can I also just add in relation to the question that you've asked about the president is that the hijab law has been paused.
So it hasn't been promulgated and that has we were expecting that to come into operation, but since the election of the new president, it has been paused.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
I wanted to just see if I could get you to take a step back.
I know you've been like digging very deeply into all the details of this, but as a general sort of perspective, I mean, some of this surveillance technology, the, the the Nazer app and what have you.
I mean, how unusual is this?
How, how unprecedented is this type of tool?
Is there any place in the world that uses this type of technology to repress women, women's rights?
How could you just put it into a a broader context for us to try to understand, for people in the street to understand how kind of unusual this kind of surveillance is, is in the world?
[Other language spoken]
Well, we haven't been surveying the world, so it's hard for us to give you that comparative analysis.
I'm afraid of the bat.
But I think what we can say is what we've seen with the use of that NASA wrap is kind of how egregious it is in terms of imposing sanctions on women for actions that are really to do with their daily life.
I mean, they're being sanctioned for simply not complying with the mandatory hijab rules, including having sort of their daily life functions interfered with.
So when, you know, imposing a fine, a criminal penalty beyond that first warning and then ultimately leading to impounding of cars, that means a woman can't, for example, take her kids to school, go to work, maybe if she has to drive to work, go to hospital, if she needs to take, you know, other people to hospital, take herself there.
I mean, it's an interference with sort of her basic mobility and functions.
So it seems kind of extraordinary as you as you're right to say, yes.
Facial recognition is increasingly being used across the world in authoritarian and other contexts, including, for example, to to monitor protesters and take action against protesters in, in all sorts of countries, including we see in in the global North.
And that's a disturbing global development.
But I think what's what's unusual and extraordinary about this is the kind of activity that is being monitored through the use of this app, which is completely, you know, protected contact, what a woman wears or doesn't wear.
And that she shouldn't have to be sanctioned for that and shouldn't have to face direct restriction of her, of her access to various services and so on.
Sure, of course, yes.
I I wanted to to add that having seen in many countries the use of surveillance for persecuting human rights defenders, I found the the experience of of documenting and investigating Iran pretty puzzling for for several reasons.
One is the development of this national Internet network that allows a level of control and restrictions of speech and activism in the digital space at a level that is really unheard of in most of the world.
The second aspect that I found truly puzzling is the use of of these different tools, these digital tools and apps that would basically enlarge the set of actors that can actually engage in the repression of protected conduct.
So, so the NASAR app allows that level of vigilantism that we, that we marked and we underscored in our report.
And, and that is pretty unique.
And it's very important because I think as, as we've seen in Iran and in, in other countries, digital spaces and digital tools are crucial for activism.
But in, in closed societies and repressive societies, they're more so.
And having these same spaces and tools deployed to, to stifle dissent has a compounded impact on, on, on a country such as Iran.
Can I just add to concretise the examples that were given earlier that due to the Nazar app, the denial of basic services to women based on the hijab or wearing or not wearing so their bank accounts can be shut down.
They they they'll be denied services.
To into hospitals and so on and these have actually happened post September.
So it's a very clear reprisal for women who who do not wear the proper mandatory hijab.
Finally, a very concrete example that 8000 vehicles that were confiscated because their drivers were not wearing the proper hijab were actually released in the summer of 2024.
[Other language spoken]
We'll take a question from the room, Robin from AFP.
[Other language spoken]
Just following up on the on the previous question on, on this NASA wrap, who are these people who are vetted to use this app and how many of them are there?
I'm just wondering how deep this goes into, into society.
And then secondly, in terms of improvement of the situation that you outline in your report, do you see any signs of hope that the situation for women and girls in Iran could change and improve along the the lines that you outline?
I don't think we have information regarding the nature of the so-called vetted individuals or their numbers.
And with respect to hope, I think the the main, you know, in the, in the work we've been doing as we started, when we started, we were not very, we didn't know whether we'd be able to reach anyone since you were not able to go into Iran in all of these two years, we never were able to get the permission to do that from the Iranian government.
We didn't know whether we could reach people.
But what we've seen over these two years, we've spoken to almost 300 victims and witnesses now inside Iran and outside.
And I think ultimately that's, you know, there's an extraordinary source of hope because despite all of this repression, people inside Iran keep on, keep on looking forward.
And we've spoken to witnesses who, you know, we've said, can you carry on, how do you carry on and so on.
They said we have to carry on.
This is our country, we're fighting for our rights and we're going to establish them.
So I think that is the ultimate source of hope.
[Other language spoken]
All right.
Did you have a question in the back to be more specific?
I clearly my last question, I am concerned about the support of foreign groups for the protest protesters in Iran.
Has your report, has your report also addressed the support from foreign government and opposition opposition group such as separate separatist, the Mujahid, Nihal Monafatim and etcetera for the protesters?
And do you in general, believe in the existence of such interventions and provocations?
[Other language spoken]
It would be absurd to say that Iran is not facing all kinds of threats around itself.
There are clearly serious security concerns at the borders and elsewhere.
But what we were mandated to do and what we have done is look into the situation of alleged human rights violations in the context of the protests that broke out.
And what we have found and whatever the context, whatever the security context in Iran may be, we have found that there is no justification for the violations that occurred against the Iranian people in Iran following 16th of September 2022.
And thank you.
If I may just add that as you all know by now, that we were not allowed access into Iran, that the Government of Iran, out of the 35 communications that we sent them, we only received responses to five and those two were incomplete and not to our satisfaction and detailed enough.
So in response to your question, one thing that would have really helped for us to answer your question would have been if we had access to the country and if the Government of Iran had come forward with evidence that there was foreign intervention in the protests.
That would have helped us a lot because whatever we have received from the government of Iran in the form of any steps that have been taken have been reflected faithfully in our reports.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Did you still have a question?
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Yeah, I think I didn't ask in the right way.
I just, but you just mentioned that you were in communication with the with the government of Iran about the report.
But did you have a, a wider response of the government of Iran to your report?
What do they think?
What did they say about it?
And also the second question is, do you think that the report could, could be an evidence for example, in the ICC court to follow this this case, I mean in a international court or something like that?
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Thanks so much for clarifying that question.
Yes, we did get more detailed responses in in number of forms.
First of all, the Special Committee on the 2022 unrest, which was set up by the Government of Iran that met with us last year.
It met with us also this year quite recently and it has produced a report regarding their findings into the consequences of the of the protests.
I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks today that they have, they have provided some information regarding the number of cases that have been opened in Iran against members of the law enforcement agencies.
They've also made some statements about compensation given out to victims and some disciplinary action taken.
Our concerns are that we've received this information, we've reflected in the reports, but we have not received any of the the breakdown.
So we don't know exactly who, how many, where have been proceeded against, what is the final outcome of these proceedings?
Also, who, where again, how many have received compensation, know we've been formed, what kinds of crimes these actions have been taken in relation to.
So there's a lot of missing information still from there.
We've also seen other government reports produced by a body called the **** Council for Human Rights, which again has provided some information around action that that's been taken by the government of Iran.
We're told that's good.
They're going to be some new bodies also established in connection with with providing relief and redress for violations.
Again, we do not have the details.
We don't have enough information to assess that at this time.
We were also told about some directives that had been that the government stated had been issued by different authorities requiring restraint in the in the response to the protests.
We've asked for these directives many times.
We've not yet received them and not yet had an opportunity to analyse and verify them fully.
Can I just sort of add to that the regarding your particular reference to the ICC, that Iran is not a state party and so therefore they cannot be this direct intervention.
But victims can make submissions for crimes that happened in countries that are state parties, so transnational crime.
But we have no knowledge of any, any such case for the moment.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Do we have any more questions from the room or online?
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
All right.
Thank you very much for joining us today and have a good day.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]