February 10, 2023

Iran Protests: More Doctors Treating Protesters Killed, Tortured and Detained

Global Medical Community Must Speak Out Against Severe Violation of International Law

February 10, 2023 — An increasing number of doctors and medical workers continue to be arrested, detained, tortured and killed by Islamic Republic forces for treating wounded protesters, in direct violation of international law that requires the protection of medical personnel as they carry out their duty to provide care to any individual in need.

Since the outbreak of anti-state protests across Iran after the September 2022 death in state custody of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini, at least 81 doctors, health workers and medical students in Iran have been detained and two women physicians have died under highly suspicious circumstances, according to the latest report from the Iranian Committee Following the Status of Detainees. Many of the detentions were carried out without any warrant.

“The beating and detaining of doctors who are trying to treat wounded individuals lay bare the inhumanity and criminality of the Islamic Republic,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

“Protecting doctors who are treating the wounded is one of the most basic principles of international law,” Ghaemi said.

“The global medical community, as well as the UN and governments worldwide, should forcefully and publicly demand that the Islamic Republic immediately cease its detainment and violence against doctors treating protesters,” Ghaemi added.

CHRI also calls on the UN Fact-Finding Mission, established by the UN Human Rights Council in November 2022 to investigate the Islamic Republic’s atrocities while repressing nationwide protests, to investigate these cases, and hold Iranian authorities accountable.

The World Medical Association states, “Governments … should comply with the Geneva Conventions, to ensure that physicians and other health care professionals provide care to everyone in need in situations of armed conflict and other situations of violence. This obligation includes a requirement to protect health care personnel and facilities.” In addition, physicians have a responsibility to treat all wounded individuals and “not abandon the wounded and sick,” irrespective of circumstance.

“All of these cases regarding the state’s persecution of doctors and medical workers should be referred to the Fact-Finding Mission established at the UN Human Rights Council for investigation,” Ghaemi noted.

The following doctors, medical workers, family members, eyewitnesses and anonymous sources spoke to CHRI regarding recent cases in which doctors and other medical care workers in Iran have been arrested, detained, placed in solitary confinement and subjected to prolonged interrogations, tortured and/or killed by Islamic Republic security forces.

Drs. Yasser Rahmani-Rad and Behnam Owhadi, Technician Homayoun Eftekharnia

On November 30, 2022, Dr. Yasser Rahmani-Rad, 34, along with Dr. Behnam Owhadi, 49, and operating room technician Homayoun Eftekharnia, 23, were arrested while traveling to western Iran to help injured protesters.

Before the arrest, Rahmani-Rad was suspended from medical school, where he was specializing in pediatrics and has practiced as a general physician, because he allegedly expressed support for workers’ strikes at the Haft Tappeh sugar plant.

“We never thought we would be detained and treated as threats to national security,” Rahmani-Rad told CHRI. “At the time, Mahabad was a war zone and we felt we had a duty to save the lives of civilians.”

We got prepared and made an announcement on social media that we were going to cities in West Azerbaijan and Kurdistan provinces to treat our injured compatriots. But the three of us were arrested and all the medicines and medical equipment we had brought with us… were confiscated. We had things that were most needed, like pain relievers, antibiotics and serums.

After our arrest, Dr. Owhadi told the security agents that persecuting volunteer doctors was a violation of international conventions. He gave them so many reasons why he shouldn’t be in detention that the authorities transferred him to Tehran on the same day while [Homayoun Eftekharnia] and I remained in the Intelligence Ministry detention center in Mahabad [West Azerbaijan province] for 46 days, including 36 days of interrogation in solitary confinement.

All three were released on bail on January 19, 2023. Rahmani-Rad added:

We’ve been accused of disturbing national security and committing a crime for treating rioters but as doctors we make an oath to treat every human being, whether they’re critics of the government or those who are suppressing them.

The assistant prosecutor of Branch 3 of the Revolutionary Court in Mahabad, Yasser Gozli, told us he was going to teach us a lesson so that no other doctor would ever dare to treat those who deserve to die for opposing the Islamic Republic.

We appeared to be treated with respect and weren’t physically abused, but the way we were interrogated was excruciating because they went on for hours without a break and they told us lies and wanted us to admit that helping the injured had nothing to do with our duty as doctors but rather politically motivated.

We were in solitary confinement for 36 days but those 10 days we spent in the public ward were something else. We saw detainees who were badly beaten. They had been threatened with rape, whipped on the soles of their feet, subjected to electric shock, slapped with deliberate intention to damage their hearing, hung upside down from the ceiling and given broken ribs.

The Islamic Republic is treating the medical community as a security threat. Look at Farhad Meysami [referring to the medical doctor and civil and women’s rights activist who has been on a hunger strike since October 7, 2022, in Rajaee-Shahr Prison in Karaj, to demand a cessation of the executions of protesters, the release political-civil prisoners, and the end of forced-hijab harassments, and who has lost a life-threatening 117 pounds]. He’s an old friend of mine. The Islamic Republic has no respect for human life on any level. Doctors have immunity everywhere in the world except Iran where they’re detained, tortured and barred from working.

This new briefing lays out updated, actionable recommendations that governments around the world can and should take to address the Islamic Republic’s violent repression of peaceful protest and basic human rights.

Dr. Parisa Bahmani and Dr. Aida Rostami, Both Killed

Parisa Bahmani, 52, a general surgeon, was killed by Islamic Republic forces during a protest rally by doctors in Tehran on October 26, 2022.

Tehran’s prosecutor Ali Salehi claimed Bahmani had died from a car accident the day before the protest, but a source told CHRI that witnesses had seen her there.

“A number of her colleagues have confirmed that she was at the protest rally [on October 26] and saw her when the security forces confronted the crowd,” said the source on condition of anonymity.

“Parisa Bahmani came to Tehran for the protest rally in front of the Medical Council headquarters to show support for the medical community and since her death, the family has come under great pressure to follow a script presented by the Islamic Republic.”

Following the violent crackdown of the doctors’ rally, Dr. Moayed Alavian and Dr. Mohammad Razi, the president and vice-president of the Tehran Medical Council, submitted their resignation.

Aida Rostami, 36, is another medical doctor who died under suspicious circumstances while providing treatment for protesters injured in Tehran’s Ekbatan neighborhood.

On December 13, 2022, her family was contacted by the police claiming Rostami had died from accidentally falling from a pedestrian overpass. However, when the family saw her body, it was clear to them that she had been tortured.

“The medical examiner told her family that they were ordered not to reveal the true cause of Aida’s death. They said that she did not die in a car accident, they killed her,” a knowledgeable source told IranWire.

Rostami’s relatives have refused to appear on state television to give a false account of her death and are now under tremendous pressure to do so, the source added.

Islamic Republic agents typically put families under pressure through various intimidation tactics, including threats of arrest, torture, and further harm to the detained individual or other family members, in order to force them into silence or public acknowledgement of the state’s narrative.

Dr. Hamid Ghare-Hassanlou

Dr. Hamid Ghare-Hassanlou, a 52-year-old radiologist, and his wife Farzaneh, were arrested with several others during a protest that led to the death of a member of the Basij militia in Karaj in mid-November 2022. He was initially given the death sentence and she was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

However, following widespread domestic and international condemnations, on December 28, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Ghare-Hassanlou’s sentence and ordered a retrial.

In an interview with Radio Farda on December 8, 2022, Ghare-Hassanlou’s brother, Hassan Ghare-Hassalou, said the radiologist and his wife were physically and mentally tortured during detention.

“During interrogations, they severely tortured him and broke five ribs on his left side,” he said. “He was given no treatment for the first ten days and one of the broken ribs damaged his left lung and caused internal bleeding.”

Threats Against Health Workers

On the occasion of Nurses Day, November 30, 2022, a number of Basij (a paramilitary force under the authority of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) militia commanders made an unannounced visit to a medical center in Karaj, Alborz province, causing a confrontation with the staff.

“Without coordinating their plans with us, officers from the local Basij unit came over to the clinic to offer gifts, flowers and sweets to the medical staff and took pictures of every one of them. But the staff, who are mostly women, returned all the flowers and gifts and objected to being filmed and photographed,” one of the clinic personnel told CHRI.

“An argument broke out between the head of the clinic, who is a woman, and the Basij officers. She defended her personnel and now the security officials have made threats against her.”

The source continued, “Since the protests began, many of our female colleagues have been showing up at work without wearing a headscarf. They were angry that the same Basij militiamen who beat women to death on the streets, were giving them flowers. We didn’t want to allow them to publish photos of us for their propaganda.”

Doctors Arrested Since September 2022

Following is a list of known arrested and detained doctors compiled by the Committee Following the Status of Detainees: