Disappearances, Deaths, and Denials

Author(s)
Jessica Peake, Christopher Heffernan, Khosro Isfahani, Lisandra Novo, UCLA Law Digital Investigations Lab, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center Legal Team
Publication Date
January 14, 2025
Publication Type
Report
Topic(s)
Conflict, International Criminal Law, International Humanitarian Law, Investigations Program

Summary

This report, “Disappearances, Deaths, and Denials: An Open Source Investigation into Violations Against Children During the Woman, Life, Freedom Movement in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” is one in a series analyzing human rights violations and international crimes committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran (Iran or IRI or Islamic Republic) in its brutal crackdown on Woman, Life, Freedom protesters. Each investigation is largely based on open source information that has been preserved as part of the Iranian Archive — a repository of digital content that has been forensically preserved for use in future accountability efforts. Each report in this series focuses on a different set of violations, and together they make visible some of the harms suffered by Iranian protesters in their demands for freedom and respect for their human rights.

This report demonstrates multiple human rights violations committed by Iranian security forces during the first two months of the Woman, Life, Freedom protest movement and rampant information suppression carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran. We present 12 case studies that draw on open source information to show what happened to just a small number of the people killed by security forces during the protests. All of them suffered multiple human rights violations including violations of the right to freedom of assembly and association, freedom of expression, gender persecution, arbitrary detention, and extrajudicial killings by security forces.