DUBAI: Amnesty International accused Iran’s clerical establishment on Wednesday of presiding over widespread abuses of human rights in a security crackdown on nationwide protests last year touched off by fuel price rises.
The London-based human rights group issued a report including allegations of “rape, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment” of those detained for involvement in the November 2019 unrest that buffeted the Islamic Republic.
The protests began over fuel price hikes but turned broadly political when thousands of mainly working-class demonstrators across the country demanded top officials step down.
“Those arrested included peaceful protesters and bystanders, among whom were schoolchildren as young as 10 years old,” said Amnesty’s report, citing what it called credible reports by witnesses and victims’ families, verified videos and information from human rights activists.
Iranian authorities said some 200,000 people took part in the protests, while the head of parliament’s national security committee said at least 7,000 were arrested. Rights groups said the figure was in the thousands. The judiciary said in January that the majority of detainees had been released.
Amnesty’s report said Iranian security services used torture against detainees including “waterboarding, beating, flogging, electric shocks, pepper-spraying genitals, sexual violence, mock executions, pulling out nails and solitary confinement, sometimes for weeks or even months.”
Iranian officials were not immediately available for comment on the report. In the past, Iran has dismissed criticism of its human rights record as baseless.
Amnesty said 304 men, women and children were killed by security forces during the protests, most from gunshot wounds, but that the true death toll was “likely much higher.”
Iranian authorities said the number of those killed in the unrest was 225, including members of the security forces. In December, citing Iranian officials, Reuters reported that some 1,500 people were killed.
Amnesty also said detainees put on trial “suffered grossly unfair judicial proceedings” by being denied access to lawyers and forced to make confessions under torture. Dozens of protesters have been sentenced to long terms in prison.
Amnesty International accuses Iran of widespread rights abuses against protesters
https://arab.news/yu7qu
Amnesty International accuses Iran of widespread rights abuses against protesters
- Report includes allegations of 'rape, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment'
One killed in attack on oil tankers off Iraq, rescue operation ongoing: authorities
- Iraq’s oil ministry said in a statement on Thursday it had “deep concern” about incidents involving oil tankers in the Gulf, without providing details
BAGHDAD: An attack on two oil tankers near Iraq killed at least one crew member, authorities said on Thursday, as Iran carries out a campaign to disrupt global energy markets.
Farhan Al-Fartousi, from Iraq’s General Company for Ports, told state television that one crew member had been killed and 38 rescued while the “search continues for the missing.”
He did not specify the crew members’ nationalities or provide details on who was behind the attack, which occurred roughly 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the coast.
The Iraqi government’s media cell told national news agency INA that “two tankers were subject to sabotage.”
Iraq’s oil ministry said in a statement on Thursday it had “deep concern” about incidents involving oil tankers in the Gulf, without providing details.
“The safety of navigation in international maritime corridors and energy supply routes must remain free from regional conflicts,” the ministry added.
The Strait of Hormuz — the waterway carrying a fifth of the world’s oil — remains closed to almost all oil tankers, and Iran has vowed that not one liter of oil would be exported from the Gulf while its war with the United States and Israel continues.
US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that US forces have struck 28 Iranian mine-laying vessels more than a week into the Middle East war.
Images of a ship at sea with plumes of smoke rising from a huge fire, were broadcast by state television channel Al-Ikhbariya. AFP could not verify the images.
An employee at Iraq’s Basra oil terminal told AFP that it was unclear “whether it was a drone attack or explosive-laden boats.”
The Iraqi State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) confirmed in a statement that two oil tankers were attacked, without providing details on how.
Maltese-flagged oil tanker ZEFYROS was attacked as it was preparing to enter the port of Khor Al-Zoubair, where it would have taken on board an additional 30,000 tons of liquid naphtha — primarily used in petrochemicals, SOMO said.
The second targeted vessel, SAFESEA VISHNU, was sailing under the Marshall Islands flag and was chartered by an Iraqi company, according to SOMO.
The incidents come just hours after the US embassy in Baghdad warned that Iran and Tehran-backed Iraqi armed groups might target US-owned oil facilities in Iraq.
