The scale of the crimes the Iranian regime committed in cracking down on Iran protests in November becomes more evident every day. More than 1,500 have been killed by security forces, plainclothes agents and Revolutionary Guards. Over 4,000 have been wounded and at least 12,000 arrested and detained.
Actual figures must be considered much higher. Many cases have not been registered due to massive repression despite vicious slaughter of protesters.
There have been numerous reports indicating that before handing over the bodies of the victims of the November protests, security forces threaten families and make them sign written pledges not to hold funeral ceremonies for their loved ones and refrain from talking about the reason for their deaths.
Bereaved families face two options in filling the birth certificates before being able to collect the bodies of their loved ones.
If the family insists on registering the reason for death as “being shot with live ammunitions and firearms,” they must pay between 20 and 200 million tomans as the cost of bullets.
If the family accepts to register the reason for death as “natural death” and proclaim that “they have no objections,” they can receive the bodies for free.
In both cases, however, security forces control and monitor the funeral procession and memorial of the victims. They even prevent families from crying at the grave of their loved ones to bid farewell.
Intelligence Ministry agents also patrol the street where the victims’ residences are located. They check all flyers and banners announcing the funerals. They instruct families not use large portraits of their loved ones, and they are the ones to choose the eulogizer.
Mohammad Javad Abedi, 16, from Isfahan worked as a construction worker. On Sunday, November 17, he was shot dead as he was going back home from work. His family did not receive his death certificate and were not allowed to see his body. His shrouded corpse was buried in Isfahan, in the presence of intelligence agents. Mohammad Javad’s father said he could not even see which part of his son’s body had been shot.
Ali Sartippi, 21, was shot in the abdomen by security forces and wounded in the city of Malard on Sunday night, November 17. He was taken to a hospital in Karaj where he lost his life at 4 a.m. The body of Ali Sartippi was buried on November 21. There are no black mourning flags or flyers around his residence. According to witnesses and reports, a large number of youths from this neighborhood have been killed during the November protests but the families are forced to restrict their mourning ceremonies to within the walls of their homes due to threats and intimidations by the regime.
At the time of collecting his body, the family of Arsham Ebrahimi were instructed to bury him in the dark of the night. They were accompanied by four State Security Force agents to bury him in a place previously designated by them.
Due to massive suppression, many of those wounded are in dire conditions. Plainclothes agents and IRGC forces are stationed inside most hospitals to identify and arrest those wounded in the Iran protests.
Fearing arrest, many of those wounded have refrained from going to hospital to receive treatment.
Reporting from Isfahan (central Iran), one of the sources of Iran Human Rights Monitor has reported that one of the wounded protesters was taken to hospital several hours after being wounded. But it was too late, and he lost his life.
Another protester wounded in Karaj, was immediately transferred to hospital to be operated on. Intelligence Ministry agents, however, took him to another hospital and interrogated him despite his critical physical conditions. Two days later, he was transferred to a detention center. He spent one night without food and medicine in temporary detention and was subsequently transferred to prison.
