Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

for Human Rights in Iran

https://www.iranrights.org
Memorial
Omid, a memorial in defense of human rights in Iran
One Person’s Story

Mahsa Mogu'i

About

Age: 19
Nationality: Iran
Religion: Presumed Muslim
Civil Status: Single

Case

Date of Killing: September 22, 2022
Location of Killing: Fuladshahr, B5 Quarter, Esfahan Province, Iran
Mode of Killing: Extrajudicial shooting
Charges: Unknown charge

Human rights violations in this case

Extrajudicial killings

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a long history of politically motivated violence in Iran and around the world. Since the 1979 Revolution, Islamic Republic operatives inside and outside the country have engaged in kidnapping, disappearing, and killing a large number of individuals whose activities they deemed undesirable. The actual number of the victims of extrajudicial killings inside Iran is not clear; however, these murders began in February 1979, with the murder of Parviz Sayyah Sina, an Anglican Bishop, and have continued since then, both inside and outside Iran. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center has so far identified over 500 extrajudicial killings outside Iran attributed to the Islamic Republic of Iran.(1)

Dissidents have been assassinated by the agents of the Islamic Republic outside Iran, where one of the first assassinations, that of a Navy Officer, Shahriar Shafiq, took place in Paris in December 1979. These assassinations have taken place in countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, India, and Pakistan in Asia; Dubai, Iraq, and Turkey in the Middle East; Cyprus, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Great Britain in Europe; and the United States across the Atlantic Ocean. In too many cases, states have failed to guarantee the victims’ rights to the truth, justice, and remedy; states have revealed little about the assassinations and have not issued arrest warrants. Where there have been arrests and prosecutions, available information reveals a state policy of eliminating perceived enemies. 

Documentation, evidence, and traces obtained through investigations conducted by local police and judicial authorities confirm, however, the theory of state committed crimes. In certain cases, these investigations have resulted in the expulsion (The Netherlands, 2018) or arrest (Brussels, 2020; Turkey, 2021) of Iranian diplomats. In limited cases outside Iran, the perpetrators of these murders have been arrested and put on trial (Paris 1980 and 1991) and the evidence presented, revealed the defendants’ connection to Iran’s government institutions, and an arrest warrant (the Mikonos Trial in Germany) has been issued for Iran’s then-Minister of Information, Ali Fallahian and the Deputy Minister of Telecommunications, Hossein Sheikh Attar.

The manner in which these killings were organized and implemented in Iran and abroad, is indicative of a single pattern which, according to Roland Chatelin, the Swiss prosecutor, contains common parameters and detailed planning. It can be ascertained from the similarities between these murders in different countries that the Iranian government is the principal entity who ordered the implementation of these crimes. (2). In 1997, the Berlin Criminal Court, in charge of hearing the case of the shooting of Kurdish dissidents in a Berlin restaurant, officially announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s highest-ranking officials had issued the order to carry out the killings. According to the indictment, the decision to commit the murders was made in a committee called the “Special Operations Committee” composed of the President, the Minister of Information and Security (VAVAK), the Minister of Foreign Affairs, representatives of the various security organs and other organizations, and finally, the Leader of the Revolution. 

Iranian authorities have not officially accepted responsibility for these murders and have even attributed their commission to internal strife in opposition groups. Nevertheless, since the very inception of the Islamic Republic regime, the Islamic Republic officials have justified these crimes from an ideological and legal standpoint. In the spring of 1979, Sadeq Khalkhali, the first Chief Shari’a Judge of the Islamic Revolutionary Courts, officially announced the regime’s decision to implement extrajudicial executions, and justified the decision: “ … These people have been sentenced to death; from the Iranian people’s perspective, if someone wants to assassinate these individuals abroad, in any country, no government has any right to bring the perpetrator to trial as a terrorist, because such a person is the implementing agent of the sentence issued by the Islamic Revolutionary Court. Therefore, they are Mahduroddam (“one whose blood may be spilled, whose life can be taken, without the perpetrator incurring any punishment”) and their sentence is death regardless of where they are [and where you find them].” 

More than 10 years after these proclamations, in a speech about the security forces’ success, Ali Fallahian, the regime’s Minister of Information stated the following regarding the elimination of members of the opposition: “ … We have had success in inflicting damage to many of these little groups outside the country and on our borders” (Speech broadcast on the state-run Iranian Radio and Television on August 31, 1992, quoted from Asr Iran, August 17, 2006).

Extrajudicial killings have rarely been pursued legally in Iran. The few murders that were followed up on in 1998 , which came to be known as “the Serial (Chain) Murders(3),” have brought to light the involvement and responsibility of the country’s Information officials. Several Ministry of Information agents who were defendants in the Serial Murders case, confirmed the existence of a long term government policy of extrajudicial killings and emphasized that there was planning on an annual basis to carry out these executions, for which a religious decree was issued. There was a budget allocated and there were objectives set, and those who participated in the murders were commended. In a lecture given at [the city of] Hamedan’s Bu Ali University in 1996, Sa’eed Emami, Ministry of Information Deputy Minister for Security Affairs and one of the principal defendants in the Serial Murders case – who was later said by Iranian officials to have committed suicide while in detention – had stressed that the activities of Iran’s security forces were not confined to the country’s borders: “ … We have set the security perimeter within the confines of our borders. [However,] if we see threats infiltrating inside the country from abroad, we will enlarge the perimeter.”

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1) Among the first known murders that occurred a week after the February 1979 Revolution was that of Mr. Parviz (Arastu) Sayyah Sina, the bishop of a church in the city of Shiraz. The assassination of Mr. Shahriar Shafiq, an Imperial Navy officer, in December 1979 in Paris is among the first murders committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran outside the country. ​​These killings continued in the following years inside and outside the country and in various forms.
2) Investigations into the murder of well-known personalities in France, Germany and Switzerland have yielded evidence and documentation showing that the officials and employees of the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran acted as accomplices and principals [in the killings]. In France, the Islamic Republic’s Deputy Minister of Post and Telegraph was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for the murder of former Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar and his assistant, Sorush Katibeh. In Germany (Berlin), the Islamic Republic’s security agents and agents of the Lebanese Hezbollah were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of four Kurdish opposition leaders. In connection with the latter case, German Judicial authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Ali Fallahian, the then-Minister of Information. 
3) A few days before Mr. Mokhtari’s murder, Dariush Foruhar and his wife, Parvaneh Eskandari, leaders of the People of Iran Party, had been killed in a most heinous manner in their own home. After Mr. Mokhtari’s body was found, the body of Mohammad Ja’far Puyandeh, another well-known literary figure, was discovered in a village near the city of Karaj. These four individuals’ cases was named the “Serial Murders”.
Human rights violations

Based on the available information, the following human rights may have been violated in this case:

  • The right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the right to change and manifest one’s religion or belief.

UDHR, Article 18; ICCPR, Article 18.1, ICCPR, Article 18.2; Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, Article 1 and Article 6.

In its general comment 22 (48) of 20 July 1993, the United Nation’s Human Rights Committee observed that the freedom to "have or to adopt" a religion or belief necessarily entailed the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one’s current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views, as well as the right to retain one’s religion or belief. Article 18, paragraph 2, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights bars coercion that would impair the right to have or adopt a religion or belief, including the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to religious beliefs and congregations, to recant their religion or belief or to convert.

  • The right to freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas.

UDHR, Article 19; ICCPR, Article 19.1 and ICCPR, Article 19.2.

  • The right to freedom of peaceful assembly. 

UDHR, Article 20; ICCPR, Article 21.

  • The right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of one’s interests.

UDHR, Article 20; ICCPR, Article 22.1.

  • The right, as a member of a religious or ethnic minority, to enjoy one’s own culture or to profess and practice one’s own religion. 

UDHR, Article 18; ICCPR, Article 27.

  • The right to equality before the law and the right to equal protection of the law. 

UDHR, Article 7; ICCPR, Article 26.

The right to due process

  • The right to be presumed innocent until found guilty by a competent and impartial tribunal in accordance with law.

ICCPR, Article 14.1 and Article 14.2.

Pre-trial detention rights

  • The right to know promptly and in detail the nature and cause of the charges against one.

UDHR, Article 9(2); ICCPR, Article 9.2 and Article 14.3.a

  • The right to counsel of one’s own choosing or the right to legal aid. The right to communicate with one’s attorney in confidence

ICCPR, Article 14.3.b and Article 14.3.d; Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, Article 1, Article 2, Article 5, Article 6, and Article 8.

  • The right to adequate time and facilities for the preparation of the defense case.

ICCPR, Article 14.3.b.

  • The right not to be compelled to testify against oneself or to confess to guilt.

ICCPR, Article 14.3.g.

  • The right not to be subjected to torture and to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

ICCPR, Article 7; Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Article 1 and Article 2.

Trial rights

  • The right to a fair and public trial without undue delay.

ICCPR, Article 14.1, Article 14.3.c.

  • The right to examine, or have examined, the witnesses against one, and the right to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on one’s behalf under the same conditions as prosecution witnesses.

ICCPR, Article 14.3.d and Article 14.3.e.

  • The right to have the decision rendered in public.

ICCPR, Article 14.1.

Judgment rights

  • The right to appeal to a court of higher jurisdiction.

ICCPR, Article 14.5.

  • The right to seek pardon or commutation of sentence.

ICCPR, Article 6.4.

  • The right not to be tried or punished again for an offence for which one has already been 

convicted or acquitted. 

ICCPR, Article 14.7.

Capital punishment

  • The inherent right to life, of which no one shall be arbitrarily deprived.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Article 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 6.1; Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, Article 1.1, Article 1.2.

  • The right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.

ICCPR, Article 7; Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Article 1 and Article 2.

About this Case

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Mahsa Mogu’i who was dreaming of winning a medal for Iran in the Olympics, wanted to become a doctor, and spend part of her income helping people in need. Mahsa could not bear cruelty.

Information regarding the extrajudicial execution of Ms. Mahsa Mogu’i, born to Mohammad Ali and Effat, in Gulshahr, Najafabad, Isfahan, unmarried, was obtained through an interview with an informed source. (Abdorrahman Boroumand Center (ABC) interview with an informed source on November 29, 2023, and December 8, 2023) The news of this extrajudicial execution was also published in the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) on (October 24, 2022) and BBC Farsi (May 20, 2023). To complete the data for Ms. Mogu’i’s memorial, information from Iran Wire (April 14, 2023), Mashreq News (November 3, 2022), Fars News Agency (November 3, 2022), Iran International (December 22, 2023), Saed News (September 24, 2022) and a post from Milad Mogu’i's Instagram (November 2, 2022) was compiled. 

According to available information, Ms. Mogu’i completed her studies in the practical field in high school. She studies hard to pass the entrance exam in the field of dentistry. She was also an athlete; she practiced taekwondo, physical fitness, and track and field and won 108 medals in these three disciplines. (BBC Farsi – May 20, 2023) 

According to an informed source, "Ms. Mogu’i dreamed of becoming a doctor and spending a part of her income to help people in need receive the necessary treatment. Mahsa could not bear to see the officials’ cruelty and irresponsibility and always said it was wrong for our people to be so poor, given all our national resources. She wanted everyone to live in conditions of prosperity, freedom, and security and not have basic human rights be our compatriots’ main concern, which in every country are trivial issues. Still, in our country, issues such as jobs, housing, safety, and financial security have become part of many people’s dreams.” Her other wish was to win a medal for Iran in the Olympics. (Interview of Boroumand Center with an informed source, November 29, 2023, and December 8, 2023) 

Ms. Mogu’i participated in the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in Fouldshahr, Isfahan, on September 21, 2022. 

2022 (Mahsa Amini) Protest background

Nationwide protests were sparked by the death in custody of 22-year old Kurdish woman Jina (Mahsa) Amini on September 16, 2022. Amini had been arrested by the morality police in Tehran for improper veiling on September 13 and sent brain dead to the hospital. The news of her death triggered protests, which started with a widespread expression of outrage on social media and the gathering of a large crowd in front of the hospital,continued in the city of Saqqez (Kordestan Province), where Mahsa was buried. Popular exasperation over the morality patrols and the veil in general, aggravated by misleading statements of the authorities regarding the cause of Mahsa’s death and the impunity generally granted to state agents for the violence used against detainees led to months of nationwide protests. Initially led by young girls and women who burned their veils, and youth in general, protesters adopted the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom,” chanted during Amini’s burial. The protest rapidly took on a clear anti-regime tone, with protesters calling for an end to the Islamic Republic. 

The scope and duration of the protest was unprecedented. State efforts to withdraw the morality police from the streets and preventative arrests of journalists and political and civil society activists did not stop the protests. By the end of December 2022, protests had taken place in about 164 cities and towns, including localities that had never witnessed protests. Close to 150 universities, high schools, businesses, and groups including oil workers, merchants of the Tehran bazaar (among others), teachers, lawyers (at least 49 of whom had been arrested as of February 1st, 2023), artists, athletes, and even doctors joined these protests in various forms. Despite the violent crackdown and mass arrests, intense protests continued for weeks, at least through November 2022, with reports of sporadic activity continuing through the beginning of 2023.

The State’s crackdown was swift and accompanied by intermittent landline and cellular internet network shutdowns, as well as threats against and arrests of victims’ family members, factors which posed a serious challenge to monitoring protests and documenting casualties. The security forces used illegal, excessive, and lethal force with handguns, shotguns, and military assault rifles against protesters. They often targeted protesters’ heads and chests, shot them at close range, and in the back. Security forces have targeted faces with pellets, causing hundreds of protesters to lose their eyesight, and according to some reports women’s genitalia. The bloodiest crackdown took place on September 30th in Zahedan, Baluchestan Province, where a protest began at the end of the Friday sermon. The death toll is reported to be above 90 for that day. Security forces shot protesters outside and worshipers inside the Mosala prayer hall. Many injured protesters, fearing arrest, did not go to hospitals where security forces have reportedly arrested injured protesters before and after they were treated.

 By February 1, 2023, the Human Rights Activists News Agency reported the number of recorded protests to be 1,262. The death toll, including protesters and passersby, stood at 527, of whom 71 were children. The number of arrests (including of wounded protesters) was estimated at a minimum at 22,000 , of whom 766 had already been tried and convicted. More than 100 protesters were at risk of capital punishment, and four had been executed in December 2022 and January 2023 without minimum standards of due process. Authorities also claimed 70 casualties among state forces, though there are consistent reports from families of killed protesters indicating authorities have pressured them or offered them rewards to falsely register their loved ones as such. Protesters, human rights groups, and the media have reported cases of beatings, torture (including to coerce confessions), and sexual assaults. Detainees have no access to lawyers during interrogations and their confessions are used in courts as evidence.

Public support and international solidarity with protesters have also been unprecedented (the use of the hashtag #MahsaAmini in Farsi and English broke world records) and on November 24, 2022, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution calling for the creation of a fact finding mission to “Thoroughly and independently investigate alleged human rights violations in the Islamic Republic of Iran related to the protests that began on 16 September 2022, especially with respect to women and children.”

Background of Extrajudicial Killings by the Islamic Republic of Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a long history of politically motivated violence in Iran and around the world. Since the 1979 Revolution, Islamic Republic operatives inside and outside the country have engaged in kidnapping, disappearing, and killing a large number of individuals whose activities they deemed undesirable. The actual number of the victims of extrajudicial killings inside Iran is not clear; however, these murders began in February 1979 and have continued since then, both inside and outside Iran. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center has so far identified over 540 killings outside Iran attributed to the Islamic Republic of Iran.*

Threat and Extrajudicial execution of Ms. Mahsa Mogu'i

Ms. Mogu’i attended the popular protest at the B5 intersection of Fouladshahr, Isfahan, on September 21, 2022. According to witnesses, after Ms. Mogu’i set fire to her shawl in front of the agents, she was physically confronted by plainclothes forces carrying batons. Using her fighting skills, Ms. Mogu’i fought with them and finally managed to escape them. The security agents filmed her at the scene of the conflict and threatened to kill her 

Ms. Mogu’i was killed on the night of September 22, 2022, in Fouladshahr, Isfahan. An informed source told the Abdorahman Boroumand Center that after participating in the protests, as she returned from the demonstrations, in an alley and away from the area of the protests, a Peugeot Pars automobile swerved in front of her, and unknown individuals shot her with a shotgun from close range. (excerpt from a Boroumand Center interview with an informed source – November 29, 2023, and December 8, 2023, and BBC Persian report - May 20, 2023)

The medical examiner's report determined Mahsa Mogu’i’s cause of death as "shock following bleeding following damage to the internal organs as a result of the body being hit by an accelerated projectile.” In the medical examiner's report, the cause of death is recorded as follows: "Death after internal organs bleeding due to gunshot wounds." In this certificate, it is stated that the body was handed over to the medical examiner in the body bag, with a black coat stained with blood, which had numerous small holes: "Blood came out of the nose and mouth/ a hole in the left jaw/ a hole in the left chin, 39 holes on the upper body and spine, there were 31 holes in the left arm, nine holes in the left watch. (Iran Wire - April 14, 2023, BBC Farsi - May 20, 2023) 

Ms. Mogu'i's funeral ceremony was held in the presence of people, relatives, and security forces in Fouladshahr cemetery. (Interview of the Borumand Foundation with an informed source - November 29, 2023 and December 8, 2023) The 40th-day observance of Ms. Mogu’i’s death was also held there with many people. During the ceremony, people sang the Bakhtiari anthem, "Mar Jangeh, Mar Jangeh, Khuda Doneh Jang Tofangeh" (Persian: Lest there has been a war, God knows that the war has been fought with guns) and clapped in unison. (BBC Farsi - November 4, 2022) 

Officials' Reaction 

After Ms. Mogu’i was killed, the security agents summoned Ms. Mogu’i's father on September 24, 2022, and forced him to make a statement in front of the cameras to confirm that the government did not kill his child. (Interview of Boroumand Center with an informed source, November 29, 2023, and December 8, 2023) 

Regarding Ms. Mogu’i’s murder, Hojjat-ul-Islam Asadullah Jafari, Chief of the Public Prosecutors’ Office of Isfahan province, said: "Investigations, in this case, started in the early hours, and what has been gleaned so far from the results of the investigations is that this person was not in the place of gathering and disturbance and was farther away." He confirmed that the shooting was done with a shotgun and announced the identity of the assailants as "unknown individuals." He went on to say: "We have seen examples of this several times in the past few days. In addition, two teams of experienced detectives from the province are investigating the case. The judicial system will certainly carry out a complete and accurate investigation to identify the perpetrators of this crime." 

Referring to the complaint by Ms. Mogu’i's family, Jafari said: "Regarding the concurrence of this incident with the riots, as usual, some of the media started attributing this person to the protests, but there’s no proof of that yet where we’re concerned; "We will definitely inform people and the family of this deceased about the new results we glean." (Mashreq News – September 24, 2022) 

After The 40th-day observance of Ms. Mogu’i’s death, the IRGC-affiliated media reported that Mahsa had been "killed by unknown elements in a secluded area" and that the security forces prevented the 40th-day observance from being turned into a public protest. The crowd [that had organized a gathering at Mahsa Magu’i’s graveside] were moving toward the city to create disturbance and insecurity when the presence of law enforcement officers dispersed them." (Fars News Agency - November 3, 2022) 

Family’s reaction 

After the murder of his daughter, the father of Ms. Mogu’i published a video on his son's Milad page and said: "I am the father of 19-year-old Mahsa Mogu’i, who was martyred by plainclothes forces on September 22nd. I want to know what sin my daughter had committed when all she did was protest with her empty hands, and they shot her body up full of holes?" 

He continued: "Did my hero daughter, who had more than a hundred sports medals, deserve for you to dispatch her to be buried in the dirt? I went back and forth for 40 days, and they did not give me a proper answer. I am out for my daughter's blood; I can't stay silent; I pray to God that her killer will face abject misery." (Milad Mogu’i’s Instagram page – October 23, 2022)

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* Dissidents have been assassinated by the agents of the Islamic Republic outside Iran in countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, India, and Pakistan in Asia; Dubai, Iraq, and Turkey in the Middle East; Cyprus, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Great Britain in Europe; and the United States across the Atlantic Ocean. In most cases, there has not been much published, and local authorities have not issued arrest warrants. But documentation, evidence, and traces obtained through investigations conducted by local police and judicial authorities confirm the theory of state committed crimes. In some instances, these investigations have resulted in the expulsion or arrest of Iranian diplomats. In a few cases outside Iran, the perpetrators of these murders have been arrested and put on trial. The evidence presented revealed the defendants’ connection to Iran’s government institutions, and an arrest warrant has been issued for Iran’s Minister of Information.
The manner in which these killings were organized and implemented in Iran and abroad is indicative of a single pattern which, according to Roland Chatelin, the Swiss prosecutor, contains common parameters and detailed planning. It can be ascertained from the similarities between these murders in different countries that the Iranian government is the principal entity that ordered the implementation of these crimes. Iranian authorities have not officially accepted responsibility for these murders and have even attributed their commission to internal strife in opposition groups. Nevertheless, since the very inception of the Islamic Republic regime, the Islamic Republic officials have justified these crimes from an ideological and legal standpoint. In the spring of 1979, Sadeq Khalkhali, the first Chief Shari’a Judge of the Islamic Revolutionary Courts, officially announced the regime’s decision to implement extrajudicial executions and justified the decision: “ … These people have been sentenced to death; from the Iranian people’s perspective, if someone wants to assassinate these individuals abroad, in any country, no government has any right to bring the perpetrator to trial as a terrorist, because such a person is the implementing agent of the sentence issued by the Islamic Revolutionary Court. Therefore, they are Mahduroddam and their sentence is death regardless of where they are.” More than 10 years after these proclamations, in a speech about the security forces’ success, Ali Fallahian, the regime’s Minister of Information, stated the following regarding the elimination of members of the opposition: “ … We have had success in inflicting damage to many of these little groups outside the country and on our borders.”
At the same time, various political, judicial, and security officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran have, at different times and occasions, confirmed the existence of a long term government policy for these extrajudicial killings and in some cases their implementation. 
Read more about the background of extrajudicial killings in the Islamic Republic of Iran by clicking on the left hand highlight with the same title.

 

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