Iran report says 16,500 dead in ‘genocide under digital darkness’
Category: News & Politics
Via: krishna • 10 months ago • 15 commentsBy: Christina Lamb , Chief Foreign Correspondent
Photo: Faces of the fallen, top: Yasin Mirzei, 28; Rubina Aminian, 23; Mehdi Zatparvar, 39; Rebin Moradi, 17. Bottom: Mojtaba Torshiz, 47; Taha Safari, 15; Melina Asadi, three; Javad Ganji, 39. [ Christina Lamb ,Chief Foreign Correspondent, The Sunday Times ]
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
‘ Y ou have ten minutes to cry,” came the officer’s curt command to the couple as he revealed the corpse of their twentysomething daughter, gunned down in the historic streets of Isfahan.
After searching morgues and hospitals for days when she didn’t come home from the demonstrations, they paid 700 million tomans (£3,700) in so-called “bullet money” demanded by the security forces and were driven five hours to another town where her body had been thrown into an old grave.
Yet in one respect they were fortunate. A complete communications and internet shutdown for the past ten days has left tens of thousands of Iranians with no idea if their loved ones are alive or dead as the regime has tried to stifle protests with what one doctor has called “genocide under cover of digital darkness”.
Families search the Kahrizak coroner’s office, south of Tehran, for the bodies of loved ones killed during this month’s protests. (SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL)
Yesterday, for the first time, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khameini , admitted that “several thousands” have been killed since the protests began three weeks ago.
In a broadcast to the nation on state TV, he blamed protesters themselves, describing them as “foot-soldiers of the United States” and claiming that “rioters were armed with live ammunition that was imported from abroad”.
But The Sunday Times has obtained a new report from doctors on the ground, which says at least 16,500 protesters have died and 330,000 have been injured, most of them in two days of utter slaughter in the most brutal crackdown by the clerical regime in its 47-year existence.
Most of the victims are thought to have been younger than 30. Heartbreaking Instagram posts record deaths of a female fashion designer of 23, three young footballers — including one who was just 17 years old and captained a youth team in Tehran — a champion basketball player of 21, a fledgling movie director and a student hoping to study for a doctorate at Bristol University, whose first protest was his last.
“This is a whole new level of brutality,” said Professor Amir Parasta, an Iranian-German eye surgeon and medical director of Munich MED, which treated many of those injured during the Women, Life, Freedom protests in 2022 and helped create a network of doctors across Iran that produced the report. “[In 2022] they were using rubber bullets and pellet guns taking out eyes. This time they are using military-grade weapons and what we are seeing are gunshot and shrapnel wounds in the head, neck and chest.
“I’ve spoken to dozens of doctors on the ground and they are really shocked and crying,” he added. “These are surgeons who have seen war.”
Basij militia have been reportedly dragging bodies from the street and taking them to other cities for burial so there is no record, or demanding large sums — such as the one paid by the couple to see their dead daughter.
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The doctors’ testimony, as well as graphic video, was provided to The Sunday Times by Parasta as it is too risky for people on the ground to speak to outsiders.
The Sunday Times was also able to reach a number of people who had fled Iran. One person said: “tell the whole world that on Friday they sprayed everyone with gunfire. The IRGC forces were calmly trying to aim for people’s heads.”
Sorry, but I don't intend to pay money in order to "READ IT ALL".
Another person said: “Snipers on rooftops were shooting people in the back of the head. We were walking when suddenly several people next to us would collapse to the ground, covered in blood. When we tried to go toward them to carry the bodies away, they opened fire on us.”
The accounts reflect the scenes in graphic videos that have emerged from Iran in recent days, as well as voicenotes, and descriptions by some witnesses crossing the border into Turkey. They tell of IRGC forces and its Basij militia on motorbikes using live ammunition from Kalashnikovs and even machineguns mounted on pick-up trucks to mow people down. There were reports, too, of Hashd al Shaabi, Shia militias from Iraq, being bussed in.
"Help is on the way." said Emperor Trump.
Figures compiled by staff in eight major eye hospitals and 16 emergency departments across the country reveal that at least 16,500-18,000 people have been killed and 330,00 to 360,000 injured, including children and pregnant women. At least 700 to 1,000 people have lost an eye. One eye hospital in Tehran alone, Noor Clinic, has documented 7,000 eye injuries. “There are so many shotgun-related eye injuries that we do not know whom to treat first,” said one ophthalmologist.
Another person, who managed to leave Iran last week, said: “My brother works at Noor clinic. He said that in just one night, and only in Tehran, there were more than 800 cases of eye removal due to pellet-gun shots to the eyes. My brother also said that based on his conversations with other doctors in hospitals in other cities, the numbers are extremely high, possibly more than 8,000 people blinded by pellet gunfire across the country.”
That regime NEEDS to be changed. What do you think??
Actually I see that as "two questions in one":
1. Should it be changed?
2. Given the current demonstrations and other current facts-- what are the odds of it being changed?
There are at least two reasons it should be changed.
"Internal reasons": The current extremist, theocratic regime is treating their own citizens horribly. Anyone who protests or demonstrates publically may be dealt with swiftly-- often short in the head and murdered on the site!
External reasons: In addition to torturing and murdering their own people, the current Iranian regime has supported terrorist groups throughout the Middle-East.
Hezbollah, Hamas...and others!
A single three letter word would have answered my question.
Houthies