Rouhani’s Advisor: No Clear Report on November 2019 Deaths Given to President Yet
Hossein Ashna, an advisor to Hassan Rouhani, has stated that Iran’s president has so far “not received a clear and defensible report on those killed in November 2019.”
In an interview published in the Andishe Pouya publication, he did not clarify which institution should present this report, but said that regarding the statistics of November 2019 deaths, “the law enforcement says one thing, the Interior Ministry says another, and the Health Ministry gives yet another number.”
Ashna emphasized that Hassan Rouhani “is not someone who said to kill people” and “has no report of this matter.”
Various reports have been published regarding the death toll from the November 2019 protests.
Reuters news agency, on December 23, 2019, in a report stating that the Islamic Republic’s leader gave orders for “the bloodiest suppression of protesters in the past four decades,” wrote that 1,500 people were killed during these protests.
Amnesry International, in a report released in early June, stated that at least 304 people were killed during the November 2019 protests in 37 cities and eight provinces of Iran.
However, Amnesty International says the actual number of deaths in November 2019 was likely far higher than this figure.
Inside Iran, on June 12, Mojtaba Zonnour, a member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, claimed that “230 people were killed” during these protests.
On June 10, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, Iran’s Interior Minister, had also said that between 200 to 225 people were killed in the November 2019 protests.
The November protests last year occurred following the government’s sudden announcement of a decision to increase gasoline prices by 200 percent in many Iranian cities, but were met with suppression by security forces.
Security and intelligence institutions of the Islamic Republic simultaneously cut off the internet throughout the country during the crackdowns.
Source: Radio Farda
