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Iran
Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) said that at least 20 Kurdish protesters were amongst the dead with 490 wounded alone in the Kurdish areas of western Iran (Rojhelat). Photo: KHRN
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Another protester was killed and several others were wounded in the latest crackdown by security forces on protests in the Kurdish city of Marivan on Saturday, with the latest nationwide death toll being placed at least 92 by a rights monitor.
Iranian authorities ordered security forces to “systematically crush the protests at any cost”, according to a report by Amnesty International last week based on leaked official documents.
Protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a young Kurdish woman, in detention have entered their third week and show no signs of subsiding any time soon.
Several human rights organizations have documented the use of lethal force and firearms against protesters, leaving at least 92 killed, according to Oslo-based Iran Human Rights Organization (IHR).
Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) said that at least 20 Kurdish protesters were amongst the dead with 490 wounded alone in the Kurdish areas of western Iran (Rojhelat).
Protests in the Kurdish areas were reported to be intense, with security forces using live ammunition against protesters, including in the city of Marivan and Dehgolan. Mokhtar Ahmadi was identified as the latest protester shot dead by security forces. He was initially wounded but later succumbed to his injuries in hospital.
Hengaw Human Rights Organization reported that authorities only allowed 20 people to attend his funeral in the dead of the night. “The security forces have obtained written undertaking that the funeral should be held at night or the body would not be handed back to the family,” the watchdog added.
The death of Ahmadi comes as Kurdish opposition groups called for the second general strike across the Kurdish areas since Amini’s death. The strike is also being staged in response to the missile and drone strikes targeting opposition bases in the neighboring Kurdistan Region which left 17 dead, including a one-day-old baby, and wounded 49 people.
The strike coincided with the massacre of Baluchi protesters at the hands of security forces in the city of Zahedan in eastern Iran which left at least 42 civilians dead and nearly 200 wounded.
Footage on social media posted by Baluchi activists showed Zahedan resembling a warzone.
Iranian authorities said two senior intelligence officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and two other members of the guards were killed in Zahedan.
KHRN reported at least 785 arrests across the Kurdish areas. “The detained protesters are in difficult conditions in … detention facilities. And the security interrogators are exerting psychological torture to obtain confessions,” the watchdog reported on Sunday. In the Kurdistan province alone 65 women protesters and activists have been reportedly detained.
In the meantime, Amini’s family is trying to find answers as to what happened to their loved one. Salih Nikbakht one of the family’s lawyers repeated that Amin died as a result of a blow to the head and called on the authorities to release the complete video footage of the morality police officer who detained her, as well as the footage from inside the van and the police station.
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