Hook: Security forces may have killed more than a thousand people in Iran protests
The US special representative for Iran said in a press conference that security forces may have killed more than a thousand people since protests over high gasoline prices began. Hook said the US government is calling for the immediate release of all Iranian political prisoners.
Brian Hook, the US special representative for Iran, said that the Iranian government has “probably killed more than 1,000 people in this country since the protests began,” and thousands more have been injured and arrested during the protests.
Speaking at a press conference at the State Department on Thursday, Hook said he could not say with certainty about the death toll because Iran has blocked the flow of information, “but as the truth trickles out of Iran, it appears possible that the regime has killed more than 1,000 Iranian citizens since the protests began,” adding that “several thousand Iranians have been injured and at least seven thousand protesters have been arrested.”
Hook said the US government calls for the immediate release of all political prisoners.
There are still no official statistics in Iran on the number of people killed, injured, and arrested in the November protests, and judicial authorities have only denied reports from media outlets outside Iran. Amnesty International says at least 208 people have been killed, including teenagers. Unofficial sources, including the website Kalameh, put the death toll at 366.
Iran also cut off internet access for users across the country from November 15 to December 2. After that, the internet shutdown continued regionally and provincially. In an interview after the internet shutdown in Iran, Brian Hook accused the leaders of the Islamic Republic of preventing citizens from accessing the internet in order to cover up the violent suppression of protest movements over the past week.
Documents received by the US State Department
The US government has asked Iranians to send reports, videos and photos of human rights violations to the US State Department through a communications platform in response to the crackdown on protests. According to Hook, about 32,000 posts have been sent to the platform so far, allowing the US government to have a more detailed view of the extent of the crackdown.
In one case, several IRGC soldiers opened fire with machine guns on demonstrators fleeing security forces, Hook said, killing at least 100 people.
Hook said there were also reports from Tehran that more than 100 people had been killed.
The US special representative for Iran said the recent protests were “the regime’s worst political crisis in 40 years.” According to Hook, Iran’s ruling ayatollahs have long lost the support of large segments of the population.
Government officials in Iran have said that the protests, which began on November 14 in response to the increase in gasoline prices and were soon accompanied by political and anti-government slogans, were organized by "villains" associated with exiled opponents of the government and "the country's main enemies, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Israel."
Source: DW
