Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Amnesty International has appealed for the UN Human Rights Council to launch an inquiry into the “deadly crackdown” against protesters in Iran.
Speaking to Rudaw on Thursday night, the organization’s Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director Phillip Luther expressed grave concern over the killing and arbitrary detention of protesters, some of whom are children.
According to the organization, more than 304 have been killed in protests which began in November after state proposals to hike fuel prices by 300%.
However, Luther told Rudaw on Thursday night that both death and detainee tolls are likely to be far higher.
While other United Nations bodies including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) have condemned Iran’s deadly crackdown and its practices of protester detention, Luther says the UN Human Rights Council – the UN’s top human authority – has yet to take the necessary action.
"We need to see the UN Human Rights Council which is the UN's top human rights body hold a special session in which they mandate an inquiry into what has happened," Luther told Rudaw.
Adding that most of those dead were killed by gunshot wounds, the Amnesty official said that the killing of peaceful protesters constitutes a “very serious violation of human rights.”
“AI [Amnesty International] has spoken to dozens of people inside Iran, has reviewed and analysed and verified video footage and it is clear that many protesters were not posing a real risk to security forces, and in some cases were running away from security forces, when they when they were shot and killed,” he added.
On December 16, Amnesty issued a joint call alongside regional and international civil society organisations for member states of the UN Human Rights Council to take action on state suppression of protests.
Iran came under fire from Members of the European Parliament on Thursday for its use of violence, with politicians urging the country to disclose the number of protester casualties.
Aside from prisons, schools and military barracks are being used to hold protesters, many of whom are detained without charge.
Some as young as 15 are being held at facilities “notorious for detainee torture,” Luther warned.
Fresh arrests were made by security forces in the Kurdish province of Kermanshah on Thursday, where more than 20 demonstrators were gunned down by state forces in November.
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