This includes at least 123 people killed in Sistan-Balochistan province. (file)
Paris:
Iran Human Rights said in an updated toll on Saturday that Iranian security forces have killed at least 326 people in nationwide protests since the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.
The Islamic republic has been hit hard by protests that erupted over Amini’s death on September 16, three days after she was arrested for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women.
The protests were sparked by fury over dress rules for women, but have turned into a widespread movement against the theocracy that has ruled Iran since the 1979 revolution.
“At least 326 people, including 43 children and 25 women, have been killed in the ongoing protests across the country,” the Oslo-based IHR said in a statement on its website.
The latest toll represents an increase of 22 since the rights group released its previous figures on 5 November.
This includes at least 123 people killed in Sistan-Baluchistan province on Iran’s southeastern border with Pakistan, a figure that also exceeds the 118 in IHR’s final toll.
Most of them were killed on 30 September when security forces opened fire on protesters after Friday prayers in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan – a massacre activists dubbed “Bloody Friday”.
The protests were triggered by the alleged rape of a 15-year-old girl in custody by a police commander in the provincial port city of Chabahar.
Analysts say Baluchi was motivated by the protests that erupted over Amini’s death, which were initially motivated by women’s rights but expanded over time to include other grievances.
IHR Director Mahmoud Amiri-Moghaddam called on the international community to take action as soon as possible to stop this crackdown.
“Establishing an international investigation and accountability mechanism by the United Nations will facilitate the process of holding future perpetrators accountable and increase the cost of continued repression by the Islamic Republic,” he said in the statement.
Another rights group, Amnesty International, has also called for such a mechanism, which it said was supported by a petition signed by more than a million people.
The IHR said it was still investigating reports of other deaths, meaning the actual number killed was “certainly higher.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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