Iran’s intelligence and security forces have been subjecting children to rape and torture using electric shocks applied to the genitals, it has been revealed.

Newsflash obtained a statement from Amnesty International on Thursday, 16th March, saying that “Iran’s intelligence and security forces have been committing horrific acts of torture, including beatings, flogging, electric shocks, rape and other sexual violence against child protesters as young as 12 to quell their involvement in nationwide protests.”

The statement added: “Marking six months of the unprecedented popular uprising in Iran, sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, Amnesty International reveals the violence meted out to children arrested during and in the aftermath of protests.

“The research exposes the torture methods that the Revolutionary Guards, the paramilitary Basij, the Public Security Police and other security and intelligence forces used against boys and girls in custody to punish and humiliate them and to extract forced ‘confessions.'”

Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: “Iranian state agents have torn children away from their families and subjected them to unfathomable cruelties.

“It is abhorrent that officials have wielded such power in a criminal manner over vulnerable and frightened children, inflicting severe pain and anguish upon them and their families and leaving them with severe physical and mental scars.

“This violence against children exposes a deliberate strategy to crush the vibrant spirit of the country’s youth and stop them from demanding freedom and human rights.”

She added: “The authorities must immediately release all children detained solely for peacefully protesting.

“With no prospect of effective impartial investigations into the torture of children domestically, we call on all states to exercise universal jurisdiction over Iranian officials, including those with command or superior responsibility, reasonably suspected of criminal responsibility for crimes under international law, including the torture of child protesters.”

One unnamed boy is quoted as saying: “They hung [me] to the point that I felt like my arms were about to rip off. I was forced to say what they wanted because they raped me with a hosepipe. They were taking my hand and forcibly making me fingerprint the papers.”

Amnesty said: “Amnesty International’s documentation also reveals that state agents used rape and other sexual violence, including electric shocks to genitals, touching genitals, and rape threats as a weapon against child detainees to break their spirits, humiliate and punish them, and/or extract ‘confessions.’ This pattern is also widely reported by adult women and men detainees.

“State agents also hurled sexual slurs at detained girls and accused them of wanting to bare their naked bodies, simply for protesting for women’s and girls’ rights and defying compulsory veiling.”

Amnesty added: “Since the start of Amnesty International’s investigations into the Iranian authorities’ brutal crackdown on the uprising, the organization has documented the cases of seven children in detail.

“The organization obtained testimonies from the victims and their families, as well as further testimonies on the widespread commission of torture against scores of children from 19 eyewitnesses, including two lawyers and 17 adult detainees who were held alongside children.

“The victims and eyewitnesses interviewed were from provinces across Iran including East Azerbaijan, Golestan, Kermanshah, Khorasan-e Razavi, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Mazandaran, Sistan and Baluchestan, Tehran, and Zanjan.”

Iranian forces have been cracking down on waves of civil disorder following the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, from Saqqez, Kurdistan Province.

She was on a visit to Tehran when she was arrested by morality police, accused of violating hijab rules on 13th September 2022.

She was allegedly beaten while in custody and spent the following days in a coma in the hospital before succumbing in the ICU on 16th September.

The clinic where she was treated said in a now-deleted social media post that she had been admitted brain-dead.

Alleged medical scans of her skull leaked by hackers showed that she had suffered bone fractures, haemorrhages, and brain oedema.

Independent media have claimed that Mahsa’s medical records showing a history of heart disease, which officials gave as her cause of death, were faked by the Iranian government.

Amnesty said that the Iranian authorities have admitted that over 22,000 people have been detained in connection with the protests.