Nobel Prize winner’s campaign targets sexual assaults on dissidents in Iran

Imprisoned human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi has launched a campaign to raise awareness and end state-sponsored sexual harassment of protesters.

Mohammadi is urging people to join the launch campaign, “A Voice Against Sexual Assault and Harassment,” by sharing their personal stories to raise awareness among others.

“Some political regimes use rape and sexual assault of all kinds as a weapon against anyone perceived as different from them,” said the campaign’s statement, posted on Mohammadi’s Instagram account. “Iran’s recent history bears witness to such horrific abuse.”

“In the 1980s and during the Kahrizak disaster, even some officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran admitted to sexually abusing prisoners and detainees,” the statement added.

Kahrizak Prison in southern Tehran became notorious for the alleged torture and rape of prisoners following the post-election protests in June 2009. Among the victims was the son of Abdolhossein Rouhalamini, a long-time member of Iran’s Basij paramilitary force and member of parliament, who died in prison due to abuse and neglect.

At that time, Amnesty International for full disclosure of the investigation into human rights violations committed in Kahrizak.

The Iranian authorities have during the Purge of prisoners in the 1980sThe exact number of those executed is unknown. Amnesty International It is estimated that between July and September 1988, the authorities “disappeared” and carried out “extrajudicial executions” of around 5,000 people.

Mohammadi’s social media post said that “the leaders and perpetrators of such human tragedies will be brought to justice before the Iranian people, but the reporters and informants of sexual harassment have always been brought to justice and punished.”

Mohammadi has already been sentenced three times by the Islamic Republic’s non-independent courts after speaking out about the state’s mistreatment of dissidents, and is due to face a fourth trial on June 8.

In a letter published on Monday, 36 female political prisoners called for Mohammadi’s trial to be public, with witnesses and survivors of sexual harassment and assault present, and independent media coverage.

The outspoken activist, is currently serving a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence for her human rights work and has been imprisoned several times.

Most recently, she was arrested in 2022 in the custody of the so-called morality police during nationwide protests following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini for allegedly violating the state’s hijab rule. A UN commission of inquiry has since declared that the Iranian state was responsible for the physical violence that led to Amini’s death.