The UN and rights teams have expressed concern over what activists described as a “deadly” crackdown in Iran in opposition to protests over the demise of a younger girl after her arrest by the infamous morality police.
Mahsa Amini, 22, died on Friday, three days after she was taken to hospital following her arrest by police chargeable for imposing Iran’s strict gown code for girls. Activists mentioned she had suffered a blow to the pinnacle in custody.
There have been protests in Tehran however the fiercest clashes to date have been in Iran’s north-eastern Kurdistan province the place Amini was from, with rights teams saying as much as 4 protesters have been killed to date and dozens extra wounded and arrested.
Human Rights Watch (HRW), which is predicated in New York, mentioned that witness accounts and movies circulating on social media “point out that authorities are utilizing teargas to disperse protesters and have apparently used deadly drive in Kurdistan province”.
“Cracking down with teargas and deadly drive in opposition to protesters demanding accountability for a girl’s demise in police custody reinforces the systematic nature of presidency rights abuses and impunity,” mentioned Tara Sepehri Far, HRW’s senior Iran researcher.
In Geneva, the UN mentioned its performing excessive commissioner for human rights, Nada Al-Nashif, expressed alarm at Amini’s demise and the “violent response by safety forces to ensuing protests”.
She mentioned there have to be an unbiased investigation into “Mahsa Amini’s tragic demise and allegations of torture and ill-treatment”.
The Kurdish human rights group Hengaw, which is predicated in Norway, mentioned it had confirmed three deaths in Kurdistan province – one in every of the cities Divandareh, Saqqez and Dehglan.
It added that 221 individuals had been wounded and one other 250 arrested within the Kurdistan area, the place there had additionally been a common strike on Monday.
A ten-year-old woman – pictures of whose blood-spattered physique have gone viral on social media – was wounded within the city of Bukan however was alive, it added.
Pictures posted on social media have proven fierce clashes, particularly within the city of Divandareh, between protesters and safety forces, with sounds of gunfire.
The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) group mentioned that 4 individuals had been killed in protests the place individuals shouted slogans together with “Dying to the dictator” and “Lady, life, freedom”.
“The worldwide group shouldn’t be silent observers of the crimes the Islamic Republic commits in opposition to its personal individuals,” mentioned the IHR director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. “We name on nations with diplomatic relations with Iran, the EU particularly, to cease additional state killings by supporting the individuals’s calls for to grasp their primary rights.”
IHR mentioned safety forces used batons, teargas, water cannon, rubber bullets and stay ammunition in sure areas “to immediately goal protesters and crush the protests”.
The UN assertion mentioned not less than two individuals have reportedly been killed and a number of other injured.
The demise of Amini has precipitated worldwide consternation, with US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, calling on Monday for “the Iranian authorities to finish its systemic persecution of girls and to permit peaceable protest”.
Headscarves have been compulsory in public for all ladies in Iran since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the shah.
The foundations are enforced by a particular unit of police, generally known as the Gasht-e Ershad (steerage patrol), who’ve the facility to arrest ladies deemed to have violated the gown code, though usually ladies are launched with a warning.
In uncommon revealed criticism from inside Iran, Jalal Rashidi Koochi, a member of parliament, advised the ISNA information company that “Gasht-e Ershad is incorrect as a result of it has had no outcome besides loss and harm for the nation”, including that “the principle drawback is that some individuals resist accepting the reality”.
Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, plans to journey to New York for the UN common meeting this week the place he is because of face intense scrutiny over Iran’s human rights document.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is to carry a uncommon assembly with Raisi afterward Tuesday in a closing try and agree a deal reviving the 2015 nuclear accord.
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