Healing society, preventing atrocities
The Islamic Republic of Iran is “a totalitarian, corrupt and incompetent state” with neither the capacity to solve the country’s problems nor the ability to survive without repression, said Dr Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, professor of medicine at the University of Oslo and founder of the Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights.
Speaking at the opening of the conference “Justice in Transition: Challenges and Solutions”, held at the University of Oslo on 2nd and 3rd September 2023, he argued that Iranian society must already prepare itself for political change.
Amiry-Moghaddam began by paying tribute to victims of state violence: Javad Rouhi, a protester who died in custody; Mahsa (Jina) Amini, whose death in 2022 sparked the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising; and Mahou Baluch, a 15-year-old raped by a senior police commander. These, he said, were emblematic of a system that relies on brutality to maintain power.
The figures he presented were stark. In the year since the 2022 protests, more than 500 demonstrators have been killed, hundreds blinded by security forces and thousands detained and tortured. Nearly 700 people were executed in the same period—an average of two a day. Kurdish and Baloch border workers [i.e.Kolbars and fuel carriers] were gunned down by guards. Such violence, he argued, forms part of a four-decade record that also includes economic mismanagement, plunder of resources and a worsening environmental crisis.
The Oslo conference, part of a series launched two years ago by Iran Human Rights, is intended to promote dialogue about possible scenarios for transition. At its previous gathering, the focus was on core rights: abolishing the death penalty and other cruel punishments, eliminating discrimination, ensuring freedom of expression and association, and building an independent judiciary.
This year’s theme was transitional justice. For Amiry-Moghaddam, that means confronting the past in full: documenting atrocities of the last 44 years, ensuring fair trials for perpetrators at every level, securing redress for victims and enacting institutional reforms in politics and the judiciary. Only by doing so, he insisted, can Iranian society be repaired and the cycle of abuse broken.
The ultimate aim, he concluded, is not retribution but prevention: to heal society and to stop crimes recurring. The two-day conference, he hoped, would help broaden debate on what justice in transition should look like, extending beyond legal processes to include economic and environmental dimensions. It is, he said, about helping Iranians to imagine and to build a freer, more just and sustainable future.
Translated from Farsi via machine translation and lightly edited for clarity.