Iran's Political Weapons: Rape and Torture

Iran's Political Weapons: Rape and Torture

"[B]oth the ISIS and Islamic Republic [of Iran] use rape as a political weapon against Kurdish women on the basis of ethnicity, gender, and religion. The only difference is that the Islamic Republic denies its well-documented abuses while ISIS publically defends its enslavement of Kurdish women and girls." — Dr. Amir Sharifi, Director, Kurdish Human Rights Advocacy Group.

"Women in Iran as a whole, and Kurdish women in particular, have very little legal protection against sexual harassment or violence." — Dr. Amir Sharifi, Director, Kurdish Human Rights Advocacy Group.

One of the most savage forms of state-sponsored human rights abuse aimed at women in custody in Iran is the raping of virgins prior to execution.

Sixty-nine years after the fall of the Kurdish Republic, the fate of Kurds in Iranian Kurdistan is still in the hands of a regime hostile to them and to all the values of the West.