While it respects a ceasefire with Israel, Iran is stepping up an internal crackdown with mass arrests, executions and military deployments, officials and activists say. Within days of Israel's air strikes beginning on June 13, Iranian security forces started a campaign of widespread arrests accompanied by an intensified street presence based around checkpoints. FRANCE 24 speaks to Hussein Baoumi, deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
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00:00This is Apropos. As Iran's Supreme Leader resurfaced earlier to warn against future U.S. attacks, making his first public comment since a ceasefire was declared with Israel, the regime is intensifying a crackdown on internal dissent.
00:17Rights groups say scores of people have been arrested over accusations of collaboration with Israel, with authorities calling for expedited trials and executions.
00:28It is a means of creating widespread fear across Iran, among dissidents of the regime, but also everyday citizens.
00:39Abduction, arrest, torture, forced confession, followed by a swift trial and execution.
00:46According to Iranian state media, three men, Idris Ali, Azad Shodei and Rasul Ahmad were hanged on Wednesday.
00:54All three were charged with spying for Israel.
00:57According to the Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights, or IHR, two of the men were border porters.
01:04The group says they were arrested for smuggling alcohol and then forced to confess to espionage for Israel.
01:10Wednesday's hangings are tragically far from an anomaly.
01:14According to IHR, nearly 600 people have been executed this year in Iran, more than any other nation in the world behind China.
01:22Watchdogs say such executions cover up intelligence failures and instill fear.
01:29The Iranian news agency for the regime's Revolutionary Guard said on social media that they'd arrested more than 700 people in the past 12 days,
01:37who they claim were working for what they call the Zionist regime or Israel.
01:42For Shirin Ardekhani, a human rights lawyer, for the Nobel Peace Prize winner Nargis Mohammadi,
01:55She told Trans24 that hostages and dissidents are particularly vulnerable right now.
02:00The authorities are going to seek revenge on us, so this rhetoric of an internal enemy will come,
02:05but will be used as justification for hunting down dissidents.
02:08That's what happened with these executions.
02:10Unfortunately, the hangings are going to start again.
02:13A dog that's vulnerable is one that barks and bites.
02:16Amnesty International has issued a dire warning about arbitrary executions and torture,
02:22with grave concern over those already on death row, including Ahmed Rezi Jalali.
02:27The Swedish-Iranian has been on death row for seven and a half years now, according to Iran spying for Israel.
02:33Amnesty fears he is at an imminent risk of execution.
02:38Well, for more, we are joined now by Hussain Bahoumi,
02:41Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
02:45Thanks so much for being with us on the program, Hussain.
02:49You have said that Iranian authorities, they're essentially weaponizing the death penalty to assert control over
02:55and also instill fear in the Iranian population.
02:58What exactly have you documented over the past few weeks?
03:02Thanks for having me, and good evening.
03:07So what we have been seeing since the 13th of June in particular is an intensification of the Iranian authorities crackdowns that has been happening for the past years and even decades.
03:20So in this period alone, we saw that the authorities have arrested hundreds of people,
03:25presumably or according to them over accusations of espionage or collaboration with the enemy that is Israel.
03:34We have also seen that the authorities have executed at least six men on the basis of completely fabricated charges and completely unfair trials.
03:45To stress on those two points, people who have been arrested, we are talking about, according to statements by Iranian officials,
03:55this could be really anyone, anyone who posted a social media post that the government deems as critical of the nation's morale or critical of the regime or supporting Israel in any way.
04:08We are talking about even people that might have been completely arrested in an arbitrary or random manner.
04:13And then the authorities, in an attempt to send the message that it's strong and cracking down on quote-unquote spies,
04:21is then subjected to torture and forced to confess to unfound charge of espionage.
04:28And then for people that were convicted, I'm talking about trials that last for 10 minutes in front of revolutionary courts,
04:37where people, they rely on confessions taken under torture that are then used to execute people in a really shocking manner.
04:47This pattern is extremely concerning given Iran's long history of the use of executions and this penalty and torture
04:54and forced disappearance to install fear and control the wider population.
04:58And Hussein, people are understandably often afraid to talk about what's actually happening on the ground in Iran,
05:06even some journalists who work there. So is it possible to even know just how widespread this crackdown is?
05:12How many people have been arrested? How many people have been executed?
05:16So the numbers that I'm giving are the extreme, the absolute minimum.
05:23And we're really relying on this stage of the larger number of people is really coming from the Iranian authorities themselves.
05:30So this is the absolute minimum number of people. For all we know, the number could be much higher.
05:37And also it's important to note that these crackdowns tend to target particular groups at a much higher rate.
05:44For example, dissidents, critics of the government, people from ethnic minorities or religious minorities across the country.
05:51We also know that the authorities sometimes they would arrest people and subject them to enforce their disappearance,
05:58where no one knows where they go or where they are held and completely cut off from any contact with the outside world.
06:04So really, this is a small subset of the wider crackdown.
06:08Let's not also forget that in the immediate aftermath of the attack by Israel, the Iranian authorities,
06:14they shut down the internet across most of the country.
06:17They restricted access to communication tools, including WhatsApp and other tools.
06:22And so access to information has become extremely much more limited even than before.
06:28You can only imagine the anguish and the fears that Iranians across the country are now suffering,
06:34whether because they don't know what was happening, how the war will end, when it will end.
06:39But also added to that is the role of the Iranian authorities in preventing them from communicating with each other or knowing what's happening.
06:46And Hussein, human rights groups like Amnesty say that, you know,
06:49Iranian authorities must ensure that people are protected from enforced disappearance, from torture, from unfair trials.
06:56But how exactly can that be ensured? What kind of pressure can be placed on the Iranian regime?
07:02The important thing to remember about human rights violations and crimes under international law across Iran is that there is an absolute sense of impunity,
07:13which the Iranian authorities from the very top to the very bottom feel.
07:18Iranian officials feel that they can do what they want with absolutely zero accountability.
07:23And so the key to challenging this, the key to start reversing this trend is to challenge this sense of impunity.
07:31How can this be done? Several ways.
07:33The ones that I want to focus on is that a lot of countries around the world, what they can do is that they can start investigations against Iranian officials.
07:43And again, I'm talking about officials from the very top to the very bottom to investigate structural investigations under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
07:51That is that courts in several countries have the power to investigate crimes under international law in other countries.
07:57And these trials, even if they do not lead immediately to arrests or even if they do not immediately lead to justice, what they would do is that they would send a message across the Iranian authorities that people will be held accountable,
08:11that even if they escape justice today, tomorrow, in a year, in two, in three and four and five, they might and they will be held accountable.
08:19This is something that is very important. And it's also important to send a message to the millions of Iranians who are under the heavy hand of the authorities in Iran, that they are not alone, that people around the world and governments around the world are thinking about them and are willing to help them in peaceful ways.
08:37And is there evidence, though, that that kind of pressure is actually being applied on Iran? As you say, it's executed more people just in the space of last year in Iran than the rest of the world combined.
08:48So what we have seen so far in particular following the recent protests for women, women life freedom, and is that we have seen a number of very good statements from a number of forward leaders from across from a large number of people around the world.
09:08If you remember, there were times where there were massive protests across Europe, across the US, across the world in solidarity with Iranians.
09:15We have also seen some measures like, for example, sanctions, travel and financial sanctions against Iranian officials.
09:22We have also started to see, for example, countries taking Iran, for example, France taking Iran in front of the International Court of Justice in relation to the practice of hostage taking.
09:33But where we have not seen yet movement is in relation to universal jurisdiction or trials against specific individuals, specific government officials, specific security officials for their role in crimes under international law.
09:49And so it's very important to see that there are some examples that we have seen globally.
09:54For example, we have seen that several Syrian officials have been prosecuted back when Assad regime was in power.
10:01And this does this did lead to some impact, did not obviously lead to a huge impact, but it was part of building blocks towards having impact and changing the direction and the behavior of the governments, even if it saves the lives of one man, one woman, one person alone.
10:18That's in itself massive impact. But we need to see that we need to see world leaders and governments moving beyond words to something effective.
10:28That thing is universal jurisdiction and trials under their own national jurisdictions.
10:35And Hussein, we've heard a lot of talk in recent days about, you know, potential regime change in Iran.
10:40Is there any evidence, despite the crackdown, that people are actually involved, you know, in a popular uprising?
10:47Or are people just simply too afraid or has, in fact, support for authorities increased since the Israeli offensive began?
10:55What I can say on this topic is that the Iranian authorities are very much concerned about seeming that they are losing control over the country.
11:10And as a result, they have went to great lengths to install fear and control the population.
11:17Again, this includes practices like restricting access to the Internet, like executions, like massive arrests, but also threats.
11:27What we have seen was lots of threats by several Iranian officials against the population, threatening them of expedited trials, threatening them of executions, threatening them of being punished for challenging the regime.
11:42So what we are really seeing, we are seeing a government that's really trying to project strengths, trying to project control, and it's doing so through escalating its widespread and systematic abuses against under international law.
12:00So this is what we are seeing right now.
12:03And what we can know from history is that these tactics never succeed in the end.
12:07What we can know is that you cannot force the population at the end of the day to like it.
12:14You cannot really exchange the fundamentals which has led the population and the millions of Iranians to go and protest against the government to silence them or to scare them, even if what you see is control or success of these tactics for a short period.
12:32We know from Iranian history, but also the history of all oppressed people across the world, that these tactics are only successful in very short periods.
12:40Hussain, thanks so much for being with us on the program tonight.
12:43That is Hussain Bouimi, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
