“The mass arrests were made by intelligence agents without a court order. According to local sources, officers entered the house and searched and confiscated some personal belongings, using verbal and physical violence to detain at least 10 people,” Paris-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) reported on Thursday.
“Security forces even beat family members” who were “trying to prevent officers from entering their homes illegally,” it added.
Confiscated belongings included laptops, cameras, mobile phones, and books, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), an NGO that monitors human rights violations across Iran.
Hengaw organization for human rights said that the security forces making the arrests were using cars from the Red Crescent, an international humanitarian organization.
Minority populations like Kurds and Balochis are subject to frequent violations including arrests and killings. At the beginning of the year, dozens of people were arrested in Kurdish cities. In the first ten months of the year, at least 392 people have been arrested, most of them on charges related to ties with Kurdish opposition groups, according to data from KHRN.
The United Nations’ human rights chief in March condemned Iranian state violence against Balochis and Kurds, expressing alarm over a “crackdown on minorities.” International monitors are concerned that human rights could further erode in Iran under hardliner President Ebrahim Raisi.
