The Iranian regime has specified on Monday the number of those “tens of thousands” of protesters who received amnesty from the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, in February, on the occasion of the 44th anniversary of the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
“22,000 people who had been sentenced or were on trial for the riots have been pardoned,” announced the head of the judiciary, Gholamhosein Mohseni Ejei, according to the Mizan news agency, which belongs to the judiciary. “Many of these people were in prison and most have been released,” Ejei said. All had participated in some way in the protests sparked by the death in September of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for not wearing her veil properly.
The judiciary’s statement offered for the first time official insight into the extent of Iran’s judicial crackdown. It also suggests that Iran’s theocracy now feels secure enough to admit the scale of the unrest, which represented one of the most serious challenges to the status quo since the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution. The figure offered by Ejei is even higher than the count previously offered by activists, who estimate that more than 19,700 were arrested during the protests.
The amnesty applied to those who were not accused of spying for foreign powers, of having maintained contacts with intelligence services of other countries, of having killed or injured individuals, of having stolen or participated in the destruction of public or military property. In total, some 82,000 defendants were freed and another 34,000 saw their sentences reduced, according to Ejei.
“Naturally, those who do not express repentance for their activities and do not commit in writing not to repeat those activities will not be pardoned,” said the number two in the judiciary, Sadeq Rahimi, the day the pardon was announced, earlier this year. last month.
Iran experienced protests over the death in police custody in September of Amini, after being arrested for not wearing the Islamic headscarf properly. The death of the 22-year-old Kurdish girl sparked the biggest protests in decades against the Islamic Republic, led by young people shouting “woman, life, freedom”, who have almost disappeared after a repression that has caused more than 500 deaths, according to the count of activists, and in which four protesters have been hanged.
However, many women have stopped wearing the mandatory headscarf as a gesture of civil disobedience in the face of laws they consider unfair and a symbol of the discrimination they suffer. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said last week that wearing the Islamic headscarf is a legal obligation and a religious necessity for Iranian women to maintain a “chaste” life and ensure the safety of society.
