Amnesty International has warned that thousands of prisoners arrested during mid-November unrest in Iran are at risk of being tortured.
Calling the arrests “arbitrary” the international human rights watchdog said, children as young as 15 have been arrested and detained alongside adults in prisons notorious for torture.
“The authorities have arrested thousands of protesters as well as journalists, students and human rights defenders to stop them from speaking out about Iran’s ruthless repression. Children as young as 15 have been arrested and detained alongside adults in prisons notorious for torture. Detainees have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment; they have been beaten, punched, kicked and flogged by security forces. Many are being denied access to their families and lawyers” Amnesty said in its statement.
The statement is accompanied by a petition calling on Iran’s head of judiciary “to protect detainees from torture and other ill-treatment, immediately and unconditionally release all those detained arbitrarily, and ensure that UN experts are given immediate access to detention centers and prisons and to families of those killed and arrested in order to conduct fact-finding investigations.”
At least 1,500 were killed, including several children, while more than 4,000 were injured during the November protests. 12,000 protesters have been detained so far, many after they were injured on the streets by security forces during the nationwide protests.
