By Pishtaz and AFP | 2023-08-30

The Iranian regime's security forces are ratcheting up a crackdown ahead of the one-year anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini.

In the past two weeks, the forces have been arresting prominent personalities, campaigners and relatives of those killed by security forces in last year's anti-regime uprising across the country, activists say.

On September 16, 2022, Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish citizen from Saqqez who was visiting relatives in Tehran, died in custody of the Iranian regime's so-called "morality police".

The morality police had arrested her for allegedly violating the regime's mandatory Islamic hair coverage rules.

Her death sparked the country's most widespread protests since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, a nationwide uprising mostly started and led by women, which initially and largely focused on the lack of personal freedoms for women, and morphed into anti-regime demonstrations.

The protests broke taboos that have prevailed in the Islamic Republic since the fall of the Pahlavi monarchy in 1979, as women removed or burned their headscarves and chanted slogans against the establishment of leader Ali Khamenei.

After several months of a brutal crackdown as the regime detained thousands of peaceful protesters, killed hundreds, and blinded dozens by targeting their eyes, the anti-establishment movement has largely subsided, despite some sporadic outbursts.

But experts and activists say regime officials are acutely aware of the risk that the anniversary could spark more protests and say security forces have stepped up repression to prevent a repeat of the events of last autumn.

Those arrested this month have included well-known anti-establishment singer Mehdi Yarrahi who released a song with an accompanying music clip urging women to remove their headscarves in defiance of the regime.

The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said 11 women's rights activists were recently detained in Gilan province in northern Iran, one of the flashpoint areas for protests last year.

Amnesty International said families of those killed in the crackdown on the movement have recently been under the regime's pressure and subjected to "arbitrary arrest and detention", "abusive interrogations", and "unjust prosecution and sentencing" in a bid to enforce "silence and impunity" over the fate of their loved ones.

Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New-York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), said, "These arrests are a blatant attempt by Iranian authorities to instill fear within the population ahead of the upcoming anniversary [and] to deter more protests."

'Cruelty without bounds'

"The cruelty of the Iranian authorities knows no bounds," said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International's deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Eltahawy accused Iran's regime officials of a "sinister attempt to cover up their crimes."

In a recent example, HRANA and the Kurdish-focused human rights monitoring group Hengaw said on August 27 that security forces detained three close family members of Hananeh Kia, including her mother.

Kia was a woman in her early 20s who was shot dead by security forces in September 2022, during the initial phase of the protests.

Dozens of family members of the victims have been detained or summoned to court in the past several weeks, reports say.

Roya Boroumand, executive director of the human rights-focused Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, said "victims' family members have been targeted pretty systematically."

"They have been arrested, summoned repeatedly and interrogated, or their houses are raided," she said, adding that they faced pressure to avoid posting content on social media, gathering to speaking publicly or commemorating their loved ones at the first anniversary of their killing.

Amnesty International said Iran has renewed its crackdown on unveiled women with enhanced patrols, backed by surveillance cameras that can identify women even inside their cars.

However, many Iranian women continue to defy the regime's rules.

'Killing machine'

Norway-based rights group Iran Human Rights says 486 people have been executed in Iran this year, and their executions were aimed at "creating fear in society and preventing more protests."

Seven men have been executed in cases related to the protests, causing an international outcry, it said, describing the regime's executions as the products of its "killing machine."

According to CHRI, Mashallah Karami, the father of executed protester Mohammad Mehdi Karami, who was hanged in January, was detained by security agents in Tehran on August 22.

There have also been reports of arrests in the Kurdish-populated area of western Iran, particularly Saqqez, Amini's hometown, which was the scene of the earliest protests after her death.

Kurdish-focused Hengaw, based outside Iran, said Saro Mostajer -- the brother of one of its board members, Jila Mostajer -- had been arrested in Saqez and taken to an unknown location.

Boroumand said the "coordinated" repression "aims at preventing the dissemination of news, videos and images of victims."

It also aims to prevent renewed public mobilization inside and outside of Iran, she added.

Ghaemi warned the "silence of the international community" in the face of the crackdown risked giving a "green light to the state security apparatus to continue muzzling civil society."