PARIS — The
UN and rights groups expressed
concern Tuesday over what activists described as a lethal crackdown in Iran
against protests over the death of a young woman after her arrest by Tehran’s
notorious morality police.
اضافة اعلان
Mahsa Amini, 22, died on Friday three days after she
was urgently hospitalized following her arrest by police responsible for
enforcing Iran’s strict dress code for women.
Activists said she suffered a blow to the head in
custody but this has not been confirmed by the Iranian authorities, who have
opened an investigation.
There have been protests in Tehran but the fiercest
clashes so far have been in Iran’s northern Kurdistan province where Amini was
from, with rights groups saying up to four protesters have been killed so far
and dozens more wounded and arrested.
New York-based
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that
witness accounts and videos circulating on social media “indicate that
authorities are using teargas to disperse protesters and have apparently used
lethal force in Kurdistan province.”
“Cracking down with teargas and lethal force against
protesters demanding accountability for a woman’s death in police custody
reinforces the systematic nature of government rights abuses and impunity,”
said Tara Sepehri Far, HRW’s senior Iran researcher.
In Geneva, the UN said acting High Commissioner for
Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif expressed alarm at Amini’s death and the “the
violent response by security forces to ensuing protests.”
She said there must be an independent investigation
into “Mahsa Amini’s tragic death and allegations of torture and ill-treatment.”
‘Stop further state killings’
The Kurdish human rights
group Hengaw, which is based in Norway, said it had confirmed a total of three
deaths in Kurdistan province — one apiece in the towns of Divandareh, Saqqez
and Dehglan.
It added that 221 people had been wounded and
another 250 arrested in the Kurdistan region, where there had also been a
general strike on Monday.
A 10-year-old girl — images of whose blood-spattered
body have gone viral on social media — was wounded in the town of Bukan but was
alive, it added.
Images posted on social media have shown fierce
clashes especially in the town of Divandareh between protesters and the
security forces, with sounds of live fire.
The Oslo-based
Iran Human Rights (IHR) group said
that four people had been killed in protests where people shouted slogans
including “Death to the dictator” and “Woman, life, freedom”.
“The international community shouldn’t be silent
observers of the crimes the Islamic Republic commits against its own people,”
said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.
“We call on
countries with diplomatic relations with Iran, the EU in particular, to stop
further state killings by supporting the people’s demands to realise their
basic rights.”
IHR said security forces used batons, teargas, water
cannons, rubber bullets and live ammunition in certain regions “to directly
target protesters and crush the protests.”
The UN statement said at least two people have
reportedly been killed and several injured.
‘Systemic persecution’
The death of Amini has
caused international consternation, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
calling Monday “on the Iranian government to end its systemic persecution of
women and to allow peaceful protest.”
The Islamic headscarf has been obligatory in public
for all women in Iran since shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that
ousted the shah.
The rules are enforced by a special unit of police
known as the Gasht-e Ershad (guidance patrol), who have the power to arrest
women deemed to have violated the dress code, although normally they are
released with a warning.
In rare published criticism from within Iran, Jalal
Rashidi Koochi, a member of parliament, told the ISNA news agency that “Gasht-e
Ershad is wrong because it has had no result except loss and damage for the
country,” adding that “the main problem is that some people resist accepting the
truth.”
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi plans to travel to
New York for the UN General Assembly this week where he is set to face intense
scrutiny over Iran’s human rights record.
French President
Emmanuel Macron is to hold a rare
meeting with Raisi later Tuesday in a final attempt to agree a deal reviving
the 2015 nuclear accord.
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