The UN Fact-Finding Mission met with at least fifty people injured during the Islamic Republic's crackdown on the Woman, Life, Freedom protests on November 23.
Participants from diverse social backgrounds and political perspectives shared their experiences with the mission's experts.
The meeting focused on justice, accountability, and restorative justice. During the session, victims of the crackdown posed questions to the mission's experts.
On the sidelines of the meeting, IranWire interviewed two experts from the mission: Shaheen Sardar Ali and Viviana Krsticevic.
IranWire inquired about their new findings following the extension of the mission’s mandate, the legal implications of its findings, and the investigation into weapons sold to Iran by European countries.
The meeting was held at the Munich New Town Hall and attended by all three mission experts.
Before arriving in Munich for this public meeting, the fact-finding experts spent two days in Paris, meeting with survivors and victims of the crackdown to record their testimonies and complaints.
Following the discussions and the Munich meeting, the Fact-Finding Mission released a statement announcing that the victims present at the session demanded "practical international action, legal reforms, and an end to impunity for the perpetrators of repression."
The mission is set to present its final report to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2025, following two years of investigating human rights violations by the Islamic Republic’s authorities.
According to the mission’s experts, a key focus of the final report will include a "roadmap for ensuring justice and reparations." In its initial report, the Fact-Finding Mission accused the Islamic Republic of "crimes against humanity."
Viviana Krsticevic told IranWire that the committee has so far received over 200 testimonies and collected at least 30,000 pieces of evidence.
Shaheen Sardar Ali explained that the mission’s focus during its extended mandate is on compiling and organizing all the evidence and documentation previously collected to provide a deeper understanding.
This effort aims to prepare materials for potential future legal processes to hold the perpetrators accountable.
One of the mission's goals, as Sardar Ali noted, is to identify mechanisms for accountability, which is why they have held meetings with the families of victims and those affected by the Zhina Movement.
A recurring question from justice-seeking families and survivors of the crackdown is why the perpetrators and masterminds behind the Islamic Republic’s crimes have not been prosecuted.
Addressing this question, Sardar Ali clarified, "We are not a court of law. Therefore, we cannot put the perpetrators on trial. However, what we can do is support the victims and the processes to put together solid, robust evidence and start those thinking processes on what can be done with all this evidence."
She added, "Hopefully, some accountability mechanism, some reparations, the right of the victims to truth and justice may take place. Since we've come to Munich and we've had these consultations, we notice that from our interviews, meetings, and consultations with victims and their families, many of our findings have really become more sharpened and deepened. Also, a lot of testimonies from people in different parts of Iran corroborate the evidence."
In this context, Viviana Krsticevic explained that part of the mission's work involves understanding the types of reparations suitable for different groups and individuals concerning various human rights violations.
She said the Fact-Finding Mission is exploring measures to redress the affected individuals and justice-seeking families.
She also said, "We need to explore with as many victims and witnesses as we can the types of actions they think are appropriate for ensuring that their harms are addressed individually, but also that there are measures to prevent recurrence, so this never happens again."
Ethnic and Religious Minorities and the Preservation of Their Rights
One aspect that has received particular attention during the extended mandate of the Fact-Finding Mission is the discrimination and violence endured by ethnic and religious groups.
Viviana Krsticevic said that certain laws suppressing women, ethnic, and religious minorities require significant reforms.
She said, "Some of the laws that oppress and exclude women and members of ethnic and religious minorities need reforms that are pretty significant."
"Some of the necessary reforms have already been outlined in our materials and our reports, but there may be others that are very relevant to different groups. For example, what are the special measures that need to be taken to ensure that all Kurdish children can access education in their own language? Or what are the special measures that need to be taken on behalf of girls?"
"We've been trying to extend our hand and ask the government to engage with us in a positive manner. We've sent several letters."
In March of last year, when the mission presented its initial report on the suppression of the 2022 protests by the Islamic Republic’s forces, it announced that the Islamic Republic had not responded to any of its letters.
Krsticevic said, "We've asked for meetings to no avail. However, our engagement with the government and with different state actors has been almost non-existent, not for lack of trying, but for their attitude toward the fact-finding mission and international monitoring mechanisms in general.
Now, ahead of the final report, Sardar Ali told IranWire that the mission had received only one reply from the Islamic Republic's officials.
"We have been contacting the Iranian regime, and to this day, we have written more than 30 letters to them. But we received a response to only one, which was regarding the death penalty of one of the persons involved in the killings."
Viviana Krsticevic emphasized that the mission has repeatedly called on the Iranian government to engage with them but has received no response.
She also said that the mission had requested a meeting with the Islamic Republic, which yielded no results.
Europe’s Double Standards on Arms Sales to the Islamic Republic
Extensive reports have been published about weapons sold by European countries to the Islamic Republic, which were used by its forces during the crackdown on the 2022 protests.
IranWire asked the Fact-Finding Mission’s experts whether they had managed to hold weapon manufacturers or European governments accountable for this issue.
Sardar Ali said, "There are a number of areas where we are quite concerned. For example, the facial recognition machinery or techniques available to the government of Iran. It comes from outside Iran, from different countries. If you look at, for example, the weaponry, a lot of it is not made inside Iran. It comes from outside Iran."
"Likewise, there is so much supportive evidence that machinery and technology come from different parts of the Western Hemisphere."
She added, "We find it very painful to see that, on the one hand, we have governments who are supporting human rights publicly, but on the other hand, their corporations and their industry are actually selling or exporting the kind of machinery and facilities that are facilitating this harm on the people. So we are very aware of it, and we are looking into it."
Viviana Krsticevic also addressed the Islamic Republic's use of weapons during the suppression of the 2022 protests.
She said, "We looked at some of the weapons and realized they were using weapons that create dispersed little pellets, hundreds of them, in order to maximize harm."
"So we have interviewed people who still have 100 pellets in their skulls and bodies. We interviewed one person who still has over ten pellets in his skull. Some of the pellets cannot be dislodged without creating further harm.
"So the use of these types of weapons is forbidden under international law, and should never be used under those circumstances. We also found that in some circumstances, they were using live ammunition, which is also something that shouldn't happen in a peaceful protest."
Shattered Dreams
Viviana Krsticevic referred to some testimonies from young protesters during the 2022 demonstration that deeply impacted her.
She recounted the story of a young Kurdish man who told the experts that he had dreamed of becoming a pilot, a dream that has now become impossible.
Another young Kurdish man described how his Kurdish identity led to harm inflicted upon him by the suppressors. A female witness said that the violence she experienced was because she was a girl.
Krsticevic said that confronting the lost dreams of young people both saddens and inspires her.
She said, "I think that they are so full of aspirations and dreams that are sometimes shattered, not only by the types of violence that come with bullets but also by the types of violence that come with systematic discrimination that closes the world to them and limits so significantly what they can and can't be."