The UN human rights workplace expressed fear over Iran’s remedy to detained protesters and said the government has refused to release some of the bodies of those killed as protests continue across the country.
“We’ve noticed a lot of mistreatment in Array. . . also the harassment of the families of the protesters,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told a news briefing in Geneva on Friday, citing several sources.
“Reports that the government has transferred injured protesters from hospitals to detention centers and refused to return the bodies of those killed to their families are worrying,” he said.
Shamdasani added that, in some cases, the government imposed situations on the release of bodies, asking families not to hold funerals or to speak to the media. Detained protesters were also denied medical treatment, he said.
The Iranian government has commented on those claims so far, but has accused Western nations of interfering in its internal affairs and has said Iran’s “enemies” are preparing plots opposed to the country.
Iran has been plagued by protests since the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody last month. The unrest posed one of the most demanding situations for Iranian leaders since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Video footage on social media showed protesters in the city of Zahedan, near Iran’s southeastern border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, on Friday calling for the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Basij militia, which has played a leading role in cracking down on protests. .
The Iranian government has not released official counts, but dozens of people are believed to have been killed in the protests and many others arrested. A harsh crackdown by security forces failed to quell the unrest.
The protests came in defiance of warnings from Khamenei and conservative President Ebrahim Raisi, who appeared to try to link the Amini protests to Wednesday’s mass shooting at the Shah Cheragh Shiite shrine in the southern city of Shiraz, which state media said he killed. Minimum 15 people. Worshipers.
Amnesty International cited the “unlawful killings” of at least eight other people in four provinces in 24 hours by Iranian security forces last Thursday.