Ex-security chief warned Iran supreme leader of UN rights investigation

According to a confidential letter leaked by the hacktivist group ‘Uprising till Overthrow' on June 26, Ali Shamkhani wrote that investigations over human rights violations during the crackdown on protests since September 2022 could even lead to revelations about other older incidents in Iran, such as the mass executions in the 1980s, Iran International reports.

In the letter, Shamkhani said that such a mission had only been formed for countries struggling with crises and civil unrest such as Syria, Libya and Sudan, noting that the creation of this mission has a connotation that Iran is also struggling with serious problems. 

Despite Shamkhani’s list of suggestions to prevent the initiative at the UN, the fact-finding mission was finally launched. 

In its resolution S35/1, "on the deteriorating situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially with respect to women and children", adopted in November 2022, the Human Rights Council decided to establish an independent international fact-finding mission.

The mandate of the mission was to thoroughly and independently investigate human rights violations in Iran related to the protests that began in September 2022, after a 22-year-old woman was killed in police custody. The mission was also mandated to engage with all relevant stakeholders, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, as well as relevant United Nations entities. 

Shamkhani, in his letter, suggested that Iran should invite Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, Clément Nyaletsossi. 

Shamkhani said that a visit by the rapporteur may lead to negative reports but also positive ones as the regime could argue that “thousands” of rallies were held without any clashes.

The leaked documents do not provide an insight on what the response was from Khamenei's office.

In recent months there were rumors about Shamkhani stepping aside as hardliners blamed him for failure to suppress the protests. In video-taped remarks released on the internet in November, former lawmaker Hamid Rasaei, a hardliner cleric, accused him of failing to quash protests.

The conjecture was further confirmed after the hacktivist group hacked into 120 servers at the presidential office, getting access to internal communications, minutes of meetings, President Ebrahims Raisi’s online conference platforms and about 1,300 computers inside the office.

Among the released documents, there is correspondence between the president’s office and the office of Shamkhani, confirming rumors that he stepped down over conflicts with the Raisi administration. 

In one letter addressed to Shamkhani, the president's chief of staff, Gholam-Hossein Esmaili, criticized the security chief for a lack of insight into the protests. With a condescending tone, Esmaili rebuked Shamkhani’s office for “merely describing and analyzing the events”, asking him to provide “meta-analyses and predictions” about the developments regarding the protests.