Stymied by protests, Iran unleashes its wrath on its youth

NEW YORK – One girl, a 14-year-old, was incarcerated in an adult prison alongside drug offenders. A 16-year-old boy had his nose broken in detention after a beating by security officers. A 13-year-old girl was physically attacked by plainclothes militia who raided her school.

A brutal crackdown by the authorities in Iran trying to halt protests calling for social freedom and political change that have convulsed the country for the past two months has exacted a

terrible toll on the nation’s youth,

according to lawyers in Iran and rights activists familiar with the cases.

Young people have been at the centre of the demonstrations and clashes with security forces on the streets and university campuses and at high schools. Iranian officials have said the average age of protesters is 15.

Some have been beaten and detained, others

have been shot and killed on the streets,

or beaten in the custody of security services.

The authorities are targeting thousands of minors, under age 18, for participating in the protests, according to interviews with two dozen people. These include lawyers in Iran involved in cases and rights activists, as well as parents, relatives and teenagers living in the country.

The lawyers and many of the individuals interviewed for this article asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.

The targeting of young people comes amid a broader crackdown on protesters in which 14,000 people have been arrested, said the United Nations.

The Islamic Republic is unleashing its wrath on its youth in ways and on a scale not seen during other protests that have rocked the country over the past two decades, the rights groups say.

The nationwide uprising has seen daily protests in cities across the country calling for an end to rule by hardline clerics in the aftermath of the

death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini,

in the custody of morality police in September.

This generation’s rage and resolve appear to have caught the country’s rulers by surprise, with senior officials acknowledging that the government and the youth – tech savvy and users of social media – “don’t understand each other’s language”, said Minister of Cultural Heritage Ezzatollah Zarghami in a speech to university students.

The government has responded to the youthful revolt with the same tactics it deploys against adults:

shooting and beating some to death;

arresting and throwing others into detention cells with adult inmates; and interrogating and threatening children and their families, said rights groups, parents and lawyers.

The 14-year-old girl detained alongside the drug offenders had gone missing after attending a protest in the religious city of Qom and flaunted her hair in defiance of Iran’s mandatory hijab rule. She was released on bail and was told she now has a criminal file and must be put on trial.

The 16-year-old boy who had his nose broken had

marched in a protest

in the north-western city of Tabriz, where the crowd chanted “death to the dictator”.

“What makes these protests different is that children are much more visibly present, displaying a bold determination to defy the establishment and ask for a better future for themselves,” said Ms Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Middle East and North Africa.

Amnesty International said it had documented 33 cases of minors killed in the uprising, but the real numbers are likely higher. Iran-focused rights groups and the association for teachers say the number is closer to 50.

The UN said last week that 14,000 people had been arrested in Iran in the past eight weeks.

Lawyers and rights activists estimate that 500 to 1,000 minors are currently in detention with no clarity on how many are held in adult prisons and how many in juvenile detention facilities.

At the juvenile detention facilities, the children have been forced to undergo behaviour therapy under the supervision of a cleric and a psychologist, who tell the children they have committed sins and they must accept their wrongdoing, said lawyers and rights activists. In several instances, the children have been prescribed psychiatric medication after resisting behavioural treatment, lawyers said.

In an audio message shared with The New York Times by prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Hossein Raeesi, a security officer said the government issued a confidential order demanding that all the cases involving children “must be handled by security and intelligence experts”.

Schools, typically considered a sanctuary for children, have also suddenly turned into battlegrounds where students are at risk for simply attending class.

The Times documented 23 raids on high schools in cities across Iran, where plainclothes militia and intelligence agents interrogated, beat and searched students or where school authorities threatened or attacked students. NYTIMES