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This report (September 17, 2022-February 1, 2023) has been prepared by a group of Azerbaijani human rights defenders regarding the latest status of the human rights violations of the Azerbaijani Turk women and children in Iran by examining the 2022 and 2023 Iran protests.
Giving an estimate of the population count of Azerbaijani Turks in Iran is very challenging as the Iranian government has never released any official demographic statistics for the ethnic and linguistic groups. However, during his official visit to Turkey in January of 2011, former Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi declared that forty percent of Iranians speak Turkish:
“We speak almost the same language. Forty percent of Iranians speak Turkish. This is a big link between Turkey and Iran.”
This report aims to close the gaps in reporting human rights violations by the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is a human rights report on the Azerbaijani Turk women and children protestors arrested, summoned, suspended from work, shot to death, and tortured by the Iranian regime’s forces.
We were able to confirm the identity of only 11 Azerbaijani Turk women and children who were murdered due to physical abuse, direct shooting, and torture by the various security forces and courts of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In some cases, arrested persons who experienced severe physical and mental trauma while detained committed suicide after being released.
Part A focuses on 11 women and child protestors murdered by Iran’s repressive regime’s forces. Part B explains the cases of 79 female and child protestors who were arrested and released till the end of their case process.
Part C will analyze three individuals summoned by the intelligence ministry and provide details on their cases.
In part D, we will focus on the case of one person who was suspended from working as a form of punishment.
In part E, we will examine the case of an Azerbaijani female lawyer detained and charged by Iran’s judicial system.
Part F will review the status of 20 sentenced individuals arrested throughout the protests. They have been sentenced to various punishments.
