ROME – Amnesty international has announced that in the protests that erupted in Iran last November, the security forces have killed at least 22 boys and one girl, aged between 12 and 17 years. In all cases (except one) to kill were real bullets that were fired against protesters, but also against the people who were present at the protests and not take part.
“In recent months a picture has emerged more and more bleak on the amplitude of repression, through the use of lethal force, of protests,” he said in a note Philip Luther, director of the research on the Middle East and North Africa of Amnesty International. “It’s devastating to know that the number of young people killed by the security forces is so high. Need for independent and impartial investigations on these killings, so that people suspected of having ordered and carried out are subject to the process”.
In the course of its research, Amnesty is know to have been based on video, photographs, death certificates and burial, reports of eyewitnesses, of relatives and friends of the victims and on information collected by human rights activists and journalists. In 10 cases, the international Ngo has verified that the victims were hit by bullets to the head or to the torso, the index of a specific intent to shoot to kill.
In the two cases, you can still read in the note, the death certificates have provided chilling details about the type of injuries to the brain, or in a case of internal hemorrhage due to perforation of the heart and lungs. The causes of the deaths are yet to be clarified: according to a source, the victim would have died because of blows to the head, according to another after being hit in the face hit by the shot of metal fired from a close distance.
Amnesty goes on to explain that twelve out of the 23 killings took place on 16 November, eight of the 17 November, and three on the 18th of November, so a few days after the beginning of the protests, which dates back to November 15. With regard to the location, of the 23 children were killed in 13 different cities located in six provinces (Isfahan, Fars, Kermanshah, Khuzestan, Kurdistan, and Tehran), and a confirmation of the national character of the repression. For Luther, “the fact that a large part of the killings of children took place in just two days is further proof that the iranian security forces were involved in a spate of killings in order to stop immediately the dissent.
Since the iranian authorities refuse to open investigations are independent, impartial and effective, it is the duty of the member states of the council Un of the human rights to have an investigation”.
The Ngo is to know that on the 25th of February he wrote to the minister of the Interior Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, giving him the names of the 23 minors, killed, their age and place of death, asking it to clarify the circumstances. Up to 3 march, the human rights organisation had not received any response. The Ngo has also spoken with family members of some of the victims, who have reported to have suffered threats and intimidation through surveillance and interrogation. At least one family has received veiled death threats against children are still alive: if they continued to speak it would have happened, “something terrible,” they said. They also reported that they were forced to bury in a hurry, their bodies always in the presence of officials of the state, unable, therefore, to require an autopsy independent. These conducted as part of the Amnesty appear to have been functional to the objective to hide the evidence of the repression.
In general, the work of Amnesty International have highlighted that the families of the protesters killed have been constantly kept away from the autopsies and the official did not have access to information concerning the circumstances of the deaths.
Amnesty has reported also that the testimonials confirm what has already occurred, that is, a climate of intimidation against families who dare to speak of the killings of their relatives.
most of these households have been forced to declare in writing that they would not have talked about with journalists or to accept the conditions imposed by the state for the commemorations would not otherwise have had in the back of the corpses of their relatives. In many cases, officials of the security services and intelligence have subjected the families of the victims to surveillance, and they even attended to the funeral and other commemorations to ensure that the conditions were complied with.
In some cases, State officials have washed and prepared the bodies for burial without informing the families, who are seen to deliver the bodies, wrapped in tissue, only a few minutes before the scheduled burial, and without being able to open the fabric to see in which conditions were and to see the impact of the wounds. In other cases, the authorities have refused to return personal belongings of the victims, such as cell phones, perhaps in fear that they contained images of illegal actions on the part of the State.
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