by Iran Human Rights (IHR), a group based in Oslo, Norway, said on Tuesday that at least 201 people were killed during the Iranian regime’s “bloody crackdown” on the Mahsa Amini uprising.
The IHR said 93 of the casualties occurred in Sistan-Baluchistan province, which burst out in protests after a police officer allegedly raped a 15-year-old girl during a murder investigation. Military police took several of the rape victim’s relatives hostage to pressure the family to withdraw its allegations.
Many of the remaining deaths were in Iranian Kurdistan, the region from which the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini she made her doomed trip to Tehran last month to visit her relatives. Amini was abducted and killed by Iran’s “Guidance Patrol” or “Morality Police” for allegedly allowing a strand of hair to peek under her obligatory Islamic headscarf.
Iranian officials claim unconvincingly that Amini died of natural causes after the Guidance Patrol put her in a truck and took her to a bleak detention center. Her family insists she had no such life-threatening health problems. Women cutting their bangs has become international gesture of solidarity with Amini and the other oppressed women of Iran.
A protester shows a portrait of Mahsa Amini during a demonstration in support of Iranian protesters who are resisting their leadership over the death of a young woman in police custody, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022, in Paris. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
The protests currently sweeping across Iran originated in Kurdistan, with claims that the terrorist morality police specifically denounced Amini because she was Kurdish.
Sistan-Baluchistan it is also home to an ethnic and religious minority that complains of persecution by the theocratic Iranian state, the Baloch. September 30 has become known as “Bloody Friday” in Sistan-Baluchistan’s capital, Zahedan, due to the large number of protesters he was killed on that date.
Map of Sistan and Baluchistan province. (D-Maps via The Iran Primer)
“Iranian human rights was able to confirm five deaths in Kurdistan in the last few days. The city of Sanandaj in Kurdistan province has witnessed widespread protests and bloody crackdowns over the past three days. The current number of confirmed deaths does not include those killed in Sanadai over the past three days,” the human rights group said.
#BREAKING At least 201, including 23 children, have been killed so far during the 2022 protests in 18 Iranian provinces, the Norway-based human rights group @IHRrights he said.
The figure does not include those likely killed in Sanadai in the past three days. pic.twitter.com/ZlB5OxCsxg— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) October 12, 2022
“The international community must prevent further killings in Kurdistan by issuing an immediate response,” said IHR Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.
The IHR was concerned that the regime’s brutal crackdown was targeting students, including children under the age of 18. Students were the driving force in the uprising, with colleges and younger girls doing it courageous gestures of contempt, including getting rid of their hijabs altogether.
The BBC on Tuesday verified reports of schoolyard protests in which young girls tore off their compulsory headscarves, extended their middle fingers to pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his predecessor Rukhullah Khomeini, and even chased an education official from a school in Karaj. throwing bottles of water at him. (Twitter/1500tasvir)
According to IHR’s analysis, cracking down on student protests is a “priority for the state” and its security forces visit schools to arrest dissident students.
On Tuesday, Iranian Education Minister Yousef Nouri admissible in a newspaper interview that student protesters are being detained by security forces and sent to “psychological institutions”.
“It is possible that these students have become ‘anti-social characters’ and we want to reform them,” Nouri said.
“Iranian Human Rights has further received numerous reports of mass arrests of protesters and civil society activists identified by intelligence agencies,” the group added.
“The use of torture and ill-treatment against protesters has been widely reported, with at least two deaths in custody. Families have told Iran Human Rights that their loved ones are being pressured into televised confessions,” IHR said.
