PARIS, France — At least 92 people have been killed nationwide in Iran’s crackdown on two weeks of protests that erupted following the death of Mahsa Amini who had been arrested by the morality police, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) NGO said on Sunday.
And at least 41 people were separately killed by the Iranian security forces in clashes that erupted last week in the city of Zahedan in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, it said.
“The killing of protesters in Iran, especially in Zahedan, amounts to crimes against humanity,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.
“The international community has a duty to investigate this crime and prevent further crimes from being committed by the Islamic Republic.”
Its previous toll had said 83 people were confirmed to have been killed in the protests that have shaken Iran since the death of Amini, amid continued severe disruptions to the Internet.
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But in what IHR described as “Zahedan’s bloody Friday,” the NGO also accused the security forces of “bloodily repressing” a protest that erupted on Friday after prayers in the city.
October 1 – Zahedan, southeast #Iran
Kuzeh Square
Protesters torched a bus belonging to the regime's state police. Regime security forces had opened fire on worshipers on Friday, leaving over 100 killed & injured.#IranProtests2022#MahsaAmini#مهسا_امینیpic.twitter.com/De6FIJSPOv— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) October 2, 2022
It said that the protest was sparked by accusations that a police chief in the port city of Chabahar, also in Sistan-Baluchistan province, had raped a 15-year-old girl from the Sunni Baluch minority.
The identities of those killed had been confirmed by the regional NGO Baluch Activists Campaign (BAC), it added, saying this meant at least 133 people had been killed in total during protests in Iran over the last fortnight.
Accounts posted on social media at the time had spoken of dozens of dead in Zahedan on Friday while images had shown overwhelmed hospitals and bloodied corpses. Some reports have said protesters sought to take control of certain streets but this is not possible to confirm.
Neighboring Pakistan, Sistan-Baluchistan is one of Iran’s poorest regions and home to the Baluch minority who mostly adhere to Sunni Islam and not the Shiism that dominates Iran.
Activists have over the last months complained that Baluch convicts were being executed in disproportionate numbers as hangings surged in the Islamic Republic.
Iran says five members of the Revolutionary Guards were killed in Zahedan in what official media described as a “terrorist incident.” State media said on Saturday that 19 people had been killed in total.
