As human rights organisations report an escalation in the brutal treatment of detainees, we speak to some of those who say they have suffered at the hands of state security forces, As human rights organisations report an escalation in the brutal treatment of detainees, we speak to some of those who say they have suffered at the hands of state security forces (…) Their car was searched and when two cans of spray paint were found in her sister’s bag, all hell broke loose. The sisters claim they were blindfolded and had their hands tied behind their back before they were pushed into the rear of a police car. Dorsa says they were taken to a building where they were forced to sign a confession saying they had been protesting, before being separated. Alone in an interrogation room, Dorsa says she could hear the screams of her two male friends being tortured nearby. When it was her turn to be interrogated, Dorsa says she was beaten and punched repeatedly while security forces screamed that she was a whore and a traitor. She claims to have been force fed the little plastic balloons that protesters had been filling with red paint to use against police on the streets. Finally, she was taken to another room. “[They] covered my face with my scarf and I couldn’t see anything. I was stripped naked and told that a lady doctor would come into the room and examine me. Minutes later, someone came to the room and when they touched me, I knew it was a man,” she says. (…) More than four months after the death of Mahsa Amini, the Kurdish woman who died in custody after being arrested for incorrectly wearing her hijab, the Iranian authorities’ attempts to crush nationwide protests have seen more than 500 people killed by security forces, including 70 children. Four protesters have so far been executed by the state, with many more facing the death sentence. According to the latest report by Human Rights Activists in Iran, 19,603 individuals have been arrested in connection with the protests and remain in detention.
via guardian: ‘They used our hijabs to gag us’: Iran protesters tell of rapes, beatings and torture by police