Spreading Justice; a collective will to identify human rights perpetrators

One of the unique aspects of this protest that has stood out compared to previous protests, is the collective will of the people to identify those responsible for the violent repression of the protests. Many videos and pictures that were circulating the social media were not only of protestors but attempts at capturing the faces of the repressive forces.
The collective will of people to hold perpetrators responsible was welcomed by the Human Rights Organizations that are working on accountability. Databases such as “Spreading Justice; Database of Human Rights Violators in Iran” increased its capacities in investigating the identities of human rights perpetrators and its efforts for accountability measures taken against them. In addition to high-ranking officials who based on their chain of command are responsible for the violent crackdown on protestors, many midlevel forces and on the ground, forces were also identified using crowd sourcing methods.
Using digital tools to improve quality of pictures taken from videos, tens of pictures of violators were shared across social media asking for help from the public in identifying the perpetrators highlighted. Thousands of people circulated these social media posts some of which were circulated over 200k times on platforms such as Telegram. Thousands of lines of information including pictures, videos, names, testimonies, etc. were received from the protestors and students, showing the will for accountability, and increasing pressure both socially, legally, and politically for the violators.
As a result, more than 100 violators and many entities were sanctioned by various governing bodies across the world including Canada, United states, and European Union.
However, these efforts not only were seen by the people but some of the repressive forces as well seemed to have been deterred from acting violently knowing their actions are being watched closely. Soon after the circulation of call for identification of perpetrators many of the repressive forces began fully covering their faces.