New Delhi: Official leaked documents reveal that Iran’s authorities ordered military commanders to “mercilessly confront” protestors after the custodial death of a 22-year-old woman, Amnesty International said Friday.
After unrest broke out in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini — a woman who was arrested by Iran’s morality police on allegations of breaking hijab rules — Iranian authorities planned “to systematically crush the protests at any cost,” the global human rights NGO said in a press release.
In its press release, Amnesty said a leaked copy of an official document states that on 21 September, Iran’s General Headquarters of Armed Forces issued an order to its commanders in all provinces to “severely confront troublemakers and anti-revolutionaries”.
The documents revealed that Iranian authorities’ plotted to “brutally crush the demonstrations by deploying the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij paramilitary force, the Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran, riot police, and plainclothes security agents”, Amnesty said.
Leaked documents reveal top-level orders to armed forces to ‘mercilessly confront’ protesters in Iran, including through the widespread use of lethal force and firearms. Their intention is clear: stopping the protests including by killing protesters.https://t.co/55seW82lq3 pic.twitter.com/uciCxdwkiv
— Agnes Callamard (@AgnesCallamard) September 30, 2022
“The Iranian authorities knowingly decided to harm or kill people who took to the streets to express their anger at decades of repression and injustice. Amid an epidemic of systemic impunity that has long prevailed in Iran, dozens of men, women, and children have been unlawfully killed in the latest round of bloodshed,” the release quoted Agnes Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty, as saying.
The non-profit added that none of the 52 identified people victims posed “any imminent threat of death or serious injury that could warrant the use of firearms against them”.
Amini died on 16 September after being in a coma for three days. The protests first broke out at her funeral a day later.
Amnesty officially puts the deaths from the military action at 52, but its investigations —which provide data from 19-25 September — say that the actual death toll could be higher and could include children.
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Indiscriminate firing
Amnesty’s findings depict that the Iranian military fired indiscriminately to crush the protests.
The non-government organisations investigations also found a pattern in the killings. Specifically, killings usually took place during the evening or nighttime demonstrations. According to the data gathered by Amnesty, many protestors were killed by security forces during live fire.
In order to corroborate their findings, the NGO “reviewed photos and videos showing deceased victims with horrifying gunshot wounds in their heads, chests and stomachs”, the report said.
Further, protestors were also killed by Iranian forces firing metal pellets, including birdshot — a type of pellet usually used for hunting birds. Amnesty’s data found that at least three men and two women were killed by firing these pellets. A 16-year-old girl was also found to have died due to wounds from baton hits to her head.
In the week investigated by Amnesty, deaths were mainly in the regions of Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan. These provinces are dominated by the Kurdish ethnic minority, a community to which Amini belonged.
‘False narrative’
Amnesty also argued that to counter any criticism or further protest due to the killings, the Iranian state reportedly perpetuated “false narratives” about the protestors and victims,
portraying them as “rioters” and “enemies of the people”.
Further, in order to relinquish any responsibility for the deaths, the regime has “also attempted to portray protesters as responsible for most of the killings recorded in the context of the protests”, Amnesty stated.
The NGO also added that evidence shows Iranian authorities are trying to intimidate or harass the families of dead protestors or coerce them with promises of financial compensation, into declaring on video that the deaths were due to “rioters” and “enemies” of the state.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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