Washington, February 11: Iran’s crackdown on dissidents since the June 2009 elections is “broader and the abuses more flagrant than previously reported,” Human Rights Watch said in a new report.
The 19-page report documents “widespread human rights abuses, including extra-judicial killings; rapes and torture; violations of the rights to freedom of assembly and expression; and thousands of arbitrary arrests and detentions” against dissidents since the election, the group said in a statement late Wednesday.
The Iranian government is trying to use anniversary celebrations “to deflect attention from its human rights violations,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
“Instead, it should use the occasion to finally hold the abusers accountable,” he said.
The report from the independent rights group is based on “extensive phone interviews and email correspondence with protesters, journalists, human rights defenders, and the families of detained political figures.”
According to HRW, the worst abuses “against ordinary protesters took place at police stations and detention centers, most notoriously at the Kahrizak detention center.
Authorities also abused detainees in Evin, “a large prison complex where Human Rights Watch has previously documented systematic abuses,” the statement read.
The Iranian government “is carrying on its campaign of intimidation, arrests, and convictions of individuals for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly. It has neither ended its crackdown nor held those responsible to account,” HRW said.
—Agencies