Human Rights Watch said Iranian security forces who are suppressing mass protests in the country have killed, tortured and sexually assaulted children.
“Iranian authorities have also arrested, interrogated, and prosecuted children in violation of legal safeguards, and judges have barred children’s families from hiring lawyers of their choice to defend them, convicted children on vague charges, and tried them outside of the youth courts that have sole jurisdiction over children’s cases,” HRW said in a report released Tuesday.
The rights group said Iran has blocked children released from detention from going back to school, and that authorities have blocked their families’ access to social welfare programs.
Tara Sepehri Far, senior Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in the report that Iran has used state power to “silence even children” during the seven months since the start of protests of the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini.
“Iranian leaders have unleashed their brutal security forces to sexually assault and torture children, and have not spared children from ludicrously unfair trials,” Sepehri Far said.
Cases documented in the report include authorities failing to provide medical care to injured children such as a 13-year-old boy who sustained a broken rib during a beating.
Another report documented that a high school student was subjected to prolonged torture with electric shocks, batons and whips after being arrested in November.
