A leak of official documents collected by the NGO International Amnesty revealed this Friday that The leadership of the Iranian Army ordered the commanders of all the provinces of the country to repress “mercilessly” the national protests against the death on September 16 of the young Mahsa Amini in the custody of the Gasht e Ershad, the so-called “Moral Police”triggering a wave of demonstrations that has resulted in at least 52 deadaccording to the humanitarian organization.
Based on this leak, Amnesty International has denounced a plot to “brutally crush” the protests Through the combined deployment of Iranian Army Revolutionary Guards, Basij paramilitary force, Law Enforcement Command, Riot Police and plainclothes policeresponsible for the “widespread use of deadly force” with “the intent, knowingly or with a reasonable degree of certainty, to kill protesters.”
Among the documents obtained by Amnesty, an order from the General Headquarters of the Armed Forces instructs the military commanders of all the country’s provinces to “severely confront rioters and anti-revolutionaries”and another memorandum from the military commander of Mazandaran province which, in even more explicit language, calls on its troops to “to confront without mercy” and “to the point of killing” those responsible for the riots.
This last document has been endorsed by a “source close to the Iranian security forces”, according to Amnesty International, which has denounced at least a clean shot charge carried out by members of the Revolutionary Guards in the city of Amol, in the latter province, which occurred on September 21, during a popular rally near the headquarters of the Government. There, “the agents of the Revolutionary Guards surprised the demonstrators from behind and began to open fire repeatedly and indiscriminately, even when the participants had dispersed to take cover”, according to this source.
Likewise, and as it has denounced in recent days, Amnesty insists that these acts of violence by the State security forces have been accompanied by extrajudicial arrests, practices of torture and sexual abuse; a wave of repression that has so far resulted in 52 deaths (who could be over 83according to figures from the Iranian NGO Iran Human Rights, according to its latest balance updated last Thursday night), including five women and five children, between September 19 and 25.
Most of the fatalities — 34 men, women and children — were recorded on September 21 in 19 cities in Alborz, Gilan, Ilam, Kermanshah, Mazandaran, Semnan, Tehran and West Azerbaijan provinces.
Amnesty has verified actions by small violent groups against the Iranian security forces which, it points out, are in no way deserving of an indiscriminate and lethal response by the security forces. Likewise, the NGO questions the official narrative about the deaths of at least four of the eleven Iranian security personnel denounced by the Iranian regime as killed by “elements against the authorities or at the service of foreign powers.”
Secretary General of Amnesty International, Agnes Callamardconcludes in his assessment of the documents that “Iranian authorities knowingly decided to harm or kill people who took to the streets to express their anger against decades of repression and injustice.”
“In the midst of an epidemic of systemic impunity that has long prevailed in Iran, dozens of men, women and children have been subjected to extrajudicial killings in this latest round of bloodshed,” Callamard denounced, calling for “a determined collective action by the international community, beyond mere declarations of condemnation” through “an independent international investigation and accountability mechanism”.
(With information from Europe Press)
KEEP READING:
After 12 days of protests, the Iranian regime warned that it will act “with all its forces” against the protesters
The UN condemned the violent response of the Iranian regime against the protests over the death of Mahsa Amini
The reasons that keep the protests in Iran alive
Source-www.infobae.com