
Massoud Safdari
AKA: Sattar
- IRGC Interrogator, Tehran (at least 2019- present)
- Human Rights Violation: Interrogation, torture and attempts to obtain forced confessions from protesters (November 2019) read more
- Institution
- IRGC
- Location
- Tehran
- Rights Violated
- Right to freedom from torture, Right to freedom of assembly
- Description
Masoud Safdari, nicknamed "Sattar", an interrogator affiliated with the security and intelligence agencies of the IRGC, was responsible for beating, torturing, and attempting to obtain forced confessions from detainees during the November 2019 nationside protests.
Massoud Safdari was visually identified in December 2020 by publishing a report from the HRANA news agency based on the information revealed by several witnesses, all of whom were detained during the November 2019 protests. The victims testified that he was directly responsible for interrogation, beatings, torture, and obtaining forced confessions in various locations, including in the area of Afsariyeh Street in Tehran, and in particular the Yad-e-Yaran Basij Resistance Base on Argentine Street.
One of the witnesses told HRANA about the presence of Sattar as interrogator during the recording of his forced confession for broadcasting on television: "I remember his face very well. He was a foulmouthed man who, along with his colleagues, managed the video recording of my confessions by threatening and intimidating me."
The nationwide protests of 2019, known as the protests of November 2019, were a series of large-scale popular demonstrations against the Iranian government, which began on November 15, 2019 in protest of the tripling of gasoline prices and quickly turned into anti-government protests that spread to 29 provinces in more than 100 cities across the country. The protests were brutally suppressed by the security and military forces. According to Amnesty International, at least 304 people were killed in the protests.
- Sources
Video identification of "Sattar", an interrogator affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, HRANA News Agency, December 12, 2016
https://www.hra-news.org/2020/hranews/a-27843/
Identifying the face of another interrogator of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran International, December 12, 2016
- Human Rights Violation: Interrogation, torture and attempts to obtain forced confessions from protesters (November 2019) read more
On 9 March 2021, the US Treasury Department placed Massoud Safdari on its human rights sanctions list for his role in widespread human rights abuses. According to this decision, Safdari and his immediate family have been banned from entering the United States.