TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A security framework in Iran has provided its first official assessment of ongoing unrest across the country, saying more than two hundred people have been killed since September.
On Saturday, the State Security Council of Iran’s Interior Ministry provided its first death toll, which it said was the result of “riots. “
He said the deaths included members of the security forces, others killed in “terrorist acts,” others killed through affiliated teams and presented as dead by the state, “rioters” and “anti-revolutionary armed elements who were members of secessionist teams. “”.
The security organ also cited “other innocent people who died in disturbing safety conditions,” but did not disclose how they were killed.
The announcement comes days after Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a senior general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said more than three hundred people had been “martyred and killed” in the unrest.
The figures are lower than those provided by several foreign-based rights organizations, which bring the death toll to more than 400.
Protests erupted across Iran shortly after the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was arrested by the country’s “morality police” in Tehran for allegedly violating a mandatory dress code.
The Iranian government blamed the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia for the unrest.
Saturday’s security body also highlighted the role of foreign intervention in the protests, saying the country faced a “hybrid war” waged through adversary states and “terrorist” media groups.
“What other people are witnessing today is not a civil protest, but destruction, violence and lack of trust by a minority of rioters,” he said.
The United Nations has called on the Iranian government to join the “disproportionate force” in reaction to the protests and has called for the release of several political prisoners while opposing protest-like death sentences.
Last month, the UN Human Rights Council voted to publish a fact-finding project to investigate the protests. Tehran condemned it as a “political” effort with which it said it would cooperate.