The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

UN accuses Iran regime of shooting protesters with live ammunition

2022-09-27T17:53:42.328Z


At least 76 people have already died in the protests over the death of the young woman arrested for wearing the veil wrong, according to a human rights organization


The United Nations confirmed on Tuesday that Iranian security forces used live ammunition to quell protests sparked by the death in Tehran of Mahsa Amini on September 16, after the 22-year-old was arrested for not wearing the veil well placed.

“Security forces have sometimes responded with live ammunition,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the UN Office for Human Rights, said in the Swiss city of Geneva.

The UN accusation corroborates those of numerous users of Iranian social networks who, circumventing the interruption of the internet service imposed by the authorities, spread videos and photographs of the demonstrations.

Some of these publications attribute several deaths due to gunshot wounds in the protests, including those of several young women, to the Tehran regime.

The Iranian authorities have so far admitted 41 deaths – in addition to 1,186 detainees – a figure that the Oslo-based NGO Iran Human Rights raises to at least 76 in the 11 days that the protests have already lasted.

The UN spokeswoman alluded to this latest count and endorsed the "reliability" of the methods of this organization, which draws up its list of deceased based in many cases on the death certificates that the relatives of the victims send them.

According to information obtained by that NGO, six women and four children are among the deceased and most families have been forced to bury their dead at night.

They have also been pressured not to hold public funerals.

Iran Human Rights maintains that the authorities have threatened these families with charges if they disclosed the death of their loved ones.

Neither the repression nor the high death toll — which could be even higher than is known — have, however, dissuaded protesters, many of them young, from continuing to clash with security forces in various cities in Iran, even in small towns traditionally considered conservative.

On Monday night, scores of Iranians took to the streets shouting “women, life, freedom” in the streets of Tehran, Yazd and Tabriz, among other cities, according to Iran Human Rights.

Even in the wealthy neighborhoods of northern Tehran, many residents sheltered in the dark chanted “death to the dictator” from their windows, alluding to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest religious and, in practice, political authority in the country.

Various social media posts, along with some Iranian activists, have spread a call for a general strike in Iran over Amini's death.

Impunity

In her appearance in Geneva, Ravina Shamdasani, the spokeswoman for the United Nations, criticized the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for the deaths of protesters and other human rights violations, both in the context of the current protests and those that have occurred in November 2019, July 2021 and last May.

These previous demonstrations were motivated by the cost of living, high inflation and the increase in the price of products such as gasoline, and not by a political claim, as is the case with the current protests against the oppressive Iranian laws against women. and, ultimately, against the regime established in Iran after the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

"We are concerned about denigrating comments by some leaders and the apparently disproportionate and unnecessary use of force against protesters," said the spokeswoman for the UN Human Rights office.

According to this organization, among the thousand people arrested are human rights defenders, lawyers, activists and twenty journalists.

Among these arrested people are also, for example, four lawyers who had assumed the defense of detained protesters, as denounced by the also lawyer Saeid Dehghan in a tweet, in which he points out that this is equivalent to "prohibiting the defense of protesters" .

Also Nilufar Hamedi, the journalist for the semi-reformist newspaper

Shargh Daily,

who reported the arrest and subsequent death at the Kasri hospital of Mahsa Amini.

Hamedi is being held in solitary confinement.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has already raised the number of informants detained for covering the demonstrations to 20.

Nilufar Hamedi is a journalist who went to Kasri hospital and published the news of #Mahsa_Amini.

Nilofar was arrested yesterday morning and his house was searched.

– Mosa naftali (@MosaNaftali) September 23, 2022

Another renowned professional, the photojournalist Yalda Moaiery, was also arrested days ago and is being held in the Qarchak women's prison in the Iranian capital.

Maryam Karimbeigi and Golrokh Iriyaei, two well-known activists, are also in police custody, the Free Workers' Union of Iran reported Monday, as is freedom of expression activist Hossein Ronaghi.

All these detainees had shared images and videos of the demonstrations and of Iranians burning their veils, the garment that has become the symbol of the oppression of women in Iran, on their social media profiles.

Parallel to the repression of the protests, Tehran tries to silence social networks, which have become the main vehicle for disseminating abuses by the security forces and the regime.

The UN has confirmed that the Iranian authorities keep cable and wireless communications cut off, as well as access to the internet and various social networks.

Even before this new wave of protests, Iranians could not access Facebook or Twitter, although the country's citizens often circumvent this ban using VPNs – virtual private networks that hide the location of the user – which are now also failing.

Follow all the international information on

Facebook

and

Twitter

, or in

our weekly newsletter

.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-09-27

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-04T05:13:55.198Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.