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Iranwire – Iranian security forces have used “excessive and unlawful lethal force” against largely peaceful protesters in Kurdistan Province’s capital, Sanandaj, since the start of the nationwide protest movement three month ago, Human Rights Watch (HRW) says.
Iran has been swept by protests demanding more freedoms and women’s rights since the September 16 death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of Tehran’s morality police. Amini had been arrested for an alleged breach of the country’s strict dress code.
Security forces have killed at least 469 people since the eruption of the demonstrations, including 63 under-18s, according to Norway-based Iran Human Rights group.
At least 18,000 others have been detained. Dozens have been handed capital punishment or are facing charges that carry a death sentence. Iran carried out the first two executions earlier this month.
The demonstrations and state clampdown have been particularly intense in the country’s western Kurdish areas and the eastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan, home to a Sunni Baluch minority.
“The Iranian authorities have unleashed alarming violence against protesters in Sanandaj” and “dramatically escalated abuses” against those in custody, Tara Sepehri Far, senior Iran researcher at HRW, said in a statement on December 21.
“Both the protests and the government’s brutal response to them reflect the government’s longtime repression of the Kurdish people’s cultural and political freedoms.”
The New York-based watchdog said that it interviewed 14 victims and witnesses of abuses in Sanandaj, including three former detainees and three family members of detainees. Its researchers also analyzed 17 videos and pictures posted to social media from the western city.
The group concluded that security forces “used excessive and lethal force against anti-government protesters and others in Sanandaj throughout September, October, and November in violation of international human rights law.”
Crackdowns were particularly violent on October 8 and November 17, when security forces using “shotguns and Kalashnikov-pattern assault rifles fired live ammunition, pellets, and teargas” at and toward protesters, killing at least six people, HRW said.
“They also fired teargas into homes and destroyed private property. One agent in civilian clothes fired an assault rifle at apartments.”
While the protests “generally were peaceful,” the organization found that “some protesters threw rocks and other objects at the security forces.”
“The security forces can take appropriate action against specific protesters committing violence, but this does not justify the security forces’ using excessive force,” according to HRW.
It pointed out that the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms prohibit the use of excessive force at all times and lethal force when there is no imminent threat of death or serious injury.
It also quoted the UN “Guidance on Less-Lethal Weapons in Law Enforcement” as saying that metal pellets, such as those fired from shotguns, should “never be used” because “multiple projectiles fired at the same time are inaccurate and, in general, their use cannot comply with the principles of necessity and proportionality.”
HRW also documented “serious abuses” against detainees, including women and children: “arbitrary arrests, denial of medical care, and torture and other ill-treatment, including threats, beatings, and sexual harassment and assault.”
The authorities “routinely failed to provide information to families about the circumstances and whereabouts of people in their custody,” it added.
