The balance sheet increases dramatically. Iranian security forces have killed 72 people, including 56 in Kurdish regions, in the past week of crackdowns on anti-regime protests, the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) said on Tuesday. The total death toll has risen to 416 since the beginning of the protest movement sparked on September 16 by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd arrested by the morality police for having broken the strict dress code requiring women to wear the sailing in public.
Among those dead were 51 children and 21 women, according to Oslo-based IHR. Over the past seven days, the majority of casualties have been in Kurdish regions of western Iran, where Tehran has sent armed reinforcements as protests mount. Demonstrations took place in several cities – Mahabad, Javanroud or Piranchahr -, often linked to the funeral ceremonies of people killed by the police.
Live ammunition
The Iranian Kurdish rights group Hengaw, also based in Norway, accused the authorities of firing live ammunition at protesters. According to him, five people were killed on Monday in Javanroud, where several thousand people had gathered to pay tribute to the victims of the weekend.
Hengaw said he had confirmed the death of 42 people in the Kurdish regions in one week, almost all killed by direct fire from live ammunition. The group posted a video of people trying to remove pellets from a protester’s body with a knife, saying they were afraid to go to hospital for fear of arrest. The New York-based NGO Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) on Monday urged the international community to act to avert a massacre in the region.
The UN warns of the “critical situation”
In Geneva, the head of human rights of the UN, Volker Türk, denounced on Tuesday the “hardening” of the response of the security forces, which “underlines the critical situation in the country”. “Volker Türk says the rising death toll from protests in Iran, including those of two children over the weekend, and the toughening response by security forces underscore the critical situation in the country,” his spokesperson said. floor Jeremy Laurence, during a regular press briefing in Geneva.
“We urge the authorities to respond to people’s demands for equality, dignity and rights, instead of using unnecessary or disproportionate force to quell protests,” he added. He pointed out that “the lack of accountability for gross human rights violations in Iran persists and contributes to growing grievances”.