Iran refuses to release bodies of dead protesters, says UN

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said this Friday (28) that Iran refuses to release the bodies of some of the protesters killed in the wave of protests that has mobilized the country since the death of Mahsa Amini, just over a month ago. .

The 22-year-old Iranian Kurd died in police custody after allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code. Her death prompted the biggest demonstrations seen in the Middle Eastern country in years – NGOs point out that at least 250 people have been victims of clashes with police in the acts so far, and thousands more have been arrested.

Spokesperson for the UN body, Ravina Shamsdasani said in a meeting with journalists that there are still reports of persecution and mistreatment of the families of the arrested protesters. They would be banned from celebrating funerals and speaking to the press to have the bodies of their families returned.

In addition, she added, information is circulating that detainees are being transferred from hospitals to detention centers, where they are sometimes prevented by the authorities from receiving medical treatment.

The UN special rapporteur for human rights, Javaid Rehman, called for the creation of an “international mechanism” to investigate the repression of the protests.

Amini died on 16 September after being detained for three days by the moral police while visiting Tehran with her brother. The regime claims that her death was due to a heart problem, a version that the family and activists dispute – they claim she was the victim of aggression by the agents. The girl’s father says he was prevented from seeing the autopsy report on his daughter’s body.

Security forces again clashed with protesters this week, 40 days after Amini’s death – a traditional period of mourning in Iran.

On Wednesday (26), the date of the end of the mourning period itself, about 10,000 people gathered at the memorial dedicated to the young woman to pay their respects, and faced fire from security forces. On Thursday (27), protesters took to streets across the country. There were acts in the capital, Tehran, in the vicinity of Zahedan, in the south-east of the country, and in Mahabad and Khoramabad, in the west – a region which is mainly Kurdish, the ethnic group of Amini.

At the rallies, participants sang “Woman, Life, Freedom”, a song that became a symbol of the struggle, and called for “death to the dictator”, in reference to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

As a way to contain the repression, the US and the European Union led a series of sanctions against Iran and key officials in the country. The US Treasury has imposed sanctions on prison officials, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and two entities accused of “efforts to disrupt digital freedom” in the Middle Eastern country.

However, the ability of these sanctions to influence Tehran’s actions is uncertain. The Islamic regime has been the target of blockades of this type for years and, although it suffers from economic crises, it has never lost support from a considerable part of the population.

At the same time, Tehran announced sanctions against media outlets from EU countries, such as the Persian versions of Deutsche Welle and RFI. The list includes European politicians.