The Iranian government is using violence against protesters in the country. Iran Human Rights reports at least 76 deaths – and thus significantly more than the state authorities. The NGO speaks of “killing and torture”. Foreign Minister Baerbock calls for new sanctions against Tehran.
At least 76 people have been killed in police crackdown on protesters in Iran, according to the Oslo-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR). According to video footage and death certificates obtained by the organization, “live ammunition is being fired directly at protesters,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. Despite hundreds of arrests and massive threats from the government, the protests in Iran after the death of young Mahsa Amini continue.
Amiry-Moghaddam called on the international community to take “firm and united concrete steps” against the “killing and torture” of demonstrators. According to the organization, deaths have been counted in 14 provinces in the country, 25 in Masandaran on the Caspian Sea alone. Three people died in Tehran, it said.
Iranian authorities reported more than 1,200 arrests and at least 41 deaths, including scores of security forces. “In the unrest of the past few days, 450 rioters were arrested in Masandaran,” said the Attorney General of the northern Iranian province, Mohammed Karimi, according to the state news agency IRNA. In Masandaran, “rioters” “attacked government buildings and damaged public property,” Karimi said. According to local media reports, the demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans.
According to images released by IHR, demonstrators in Tehran shouted “death to the dictator” and demanded the overthrow of Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Riot police beat protesters with batons, students tore up large photos of Khamenei and his predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini, new videos released by AFP news agency show. Protesters threw stones, set fire to police cars and set fire to public buildings. Other images showed women in several cities taking off their veils and setting them on fire, or symbolically cutting their hair.
The Tasnim news agency published around 20 photos of demonstrators, including women, on Monday in the city of Qom, south of Tehran, which is holy to Shiites. The military had asked residents to identify the “leaders of the unrest” in pictures and “to inform the authorities”.
In view of the violence against the demonstrators, the German government summoned the Iranian ambassador. “We call on the Iranian authorities to allow peaceful protests and not to use any further – let alone deadly – violence against demonstrators,” the Foreign Office in Berlin said on Twitter. This was also communicated directly to the Iranian ambassador.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called for new sanctions against Iran. “We will now have to talk very quickly about further consequences in the EU circle, which for me also includes sanctions against those responsible,” said the Green politician. “The attempt to suppress peaceful protests with even more deadly force must not go unanswered,” she added. “Women’s rights are the yardstick for the state of a society. If women are not safe in a country, nobody is safe.”
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already announced sanctions against a dozen Iranian officials and institutions, including the vice squad. The trigger for the nationwide protests was the death of the young Kurd Mahsa Amini after she was arrested by the vice squad. Amini was arrested on September 13 on charges of not wearing the Islamic headscarf in accordance with strict regulations. After her arrest, she collapsed under mysterious circumstances at the police station and was pronounced dead at the hospital three days later.
