At least 208 people are believed to have been killed during a crackdown on protests in Iran last month that followed a sharp fuel price hike, Amnesty International said Monday.
“The number of people believed to have been killed during demonstrations in Iran that broke out on 15 November has risen to at least 208, based on credible reports received by the organization,” said the London-based rights group, adding that the actual death toll was likely higher.
The new toll ups the number of deaths according to Amnesty by almost 50, with the organization saying dozens were recorded in Shahriar city in Tehran province, “one of the cities with the highest death tolls.”
Protests erupted on November 15 after the shock announcement of a fuel price hike of up to 200%, but were quickly quashed by authorities who also imposed a week-long near-total internet blackout.
Philip Luther, Amnesty’s research and advocacy head for the Middle East, called the number of deaths “evidence that Iran’s security forces went on a horrific killing spree,” and called on the international community to ensure those responsible are held accountable.
“The deaths have resulted almost entirely from the use of firearms,” Amnesty said previously.
Amnesty added that, according to collected information, “families of victims have been threatened and warned not to speak to the media, or to hold funeral ceremonies for their loved ones.
“Some families are also being forced to make extortionate payments to have the bodies of their loved ones returned to them.”
During recent protests in Iran over fuel prices, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps forces massacred between 40 to 100 mostly unarmed young men, when they opened fire with machine guns on a marsh near the city of Mahshahr where demonstrators had taken refuge, the New York Times reported Sunday.
The report comes a day after Iran disputed death tolls issued abroad for bloodshed that erupted during protests two weeks ago, after a rights group said over 160 demonstrators were killed across the country.
The demonstrations flared in mid-November, after the price of gasoline in the Islamic republic went up overnight by as much as 200 percent.
According the Times, it was able to gather testimony and evidence as Iran slowly lifted an almost complete internet blackout that had been imposed as the protests were brutally crushed. The internet was still off in Mahshahr in Iran’s southwest.
The New York Times said it had interviewed six residents of Mahshahr, including “a protest leader who had witnessed the violence; a reporter based in the city who works for Iranian media, and had investigated the violence but was banned from reporting it; and a nurse at the hospital where casualties were treated.”
Mahshahr is in a region with an ethnic Arab majority with a long history of opposition to the central government.
The witness described how the Revolutionary Guards deployed a large force to Mahshahr on Monday, November 18, to crush the protests after demonstrators gained control of the city and roads leading to a nearby major industrial petrochemical complex.
The guard immediately opened fire on protesters manning one intersection, without giving warning and killed several people, residents said
In Iran Mahshahr’s Naft Hospital: Iranian protesters morn their loved one who were shot directly by the regime’s criminal snipers! #AllParties! #IranProtests @FedericaMog pic.twitter.com/3NoneWZgjF
— Peymaneh Shafi (@peymaneh123) November 30, 2019
Many of the protester then fled to take cover in a nearby marsh, where one of them, armed with a rifle, opened fire on the troops, who responded with machine gun fire, killing dozens, the report said.
Residents put the death toll between 40 and 100, saying the Guards put the dead on the back of a truck and took them away, while relatives took the wounded to a nearby hospital.
A nurse said many of the wounded had bullet wounds to the head and chest.
One protester, who said two of his cousins were killed, described how families were given the bodies back five days later only after they had signed paperwork promising not to hold funerals or memorial services and not to give interviews to media.
He said they also had bullet wounds in the head and chest.
After the massacre, a gun battle erupted between the Guards and local residents, many of whom have guns kept for hunting, one witness said. The report quoted Iranian state media and witnesses saying that a senior Guards commander had been killed in a Mahshahr clash.
Internet footage also suggested that the Guards deployed tanks in the city.
A crippling regime considers Iranians as its big threat and enemy.Last week regime performed full fledged war against unarmed people. Here you can see Tanks in Mahshahr. The internet still is off there, all we hear is that a bloody massacre took place in Mahshahr. #IranProtestpic.twitter.com/aO2AEPsEoX— Sara (@saraghavamian) November 30, 2019
Iran’s interior minister confirmed that the protesters had gotten control over Mahshahr and its roads in a televised interview last week, but the Iranian government did not respond to specific questions in recent days about the mass killings in the city, the report said.
Officials in Iran have yet to say how many people died in the ensuing violence that saw banks, petrol pumps and police stations set on fire.
The New York Times put the death toll across the country at between 180 and 450. The London-based human rights group Amnesty International said in a tweet on Friday that the crackdown claimed the lives of at least 161 demonstrators.
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