Rights activists alarmed as Iran throws 3,700 in jail over protests
DUBAI: Iranian security forces arrested some 3,700 people during widespread protests and unrest over the past two weeks, a lawmaker said Tuesday, offering a far higher number than authorities previously released.
The demonstrations, which began Dec. 28 over economic grievances, quickly spread across the country to become the largest seen in Iran since the disputed 2009 presidential election. Some protesters called for the overthrow of the government, and at least 21 people were killed in clashes.
Human rights activists outside of Iran told The Associated Press they were not surprised by the figure as authorities also allegedly carried out so-called “preventative arrests” of students not involved in the protests. Some 4,000 arrests followed the 2009 protests.
Activists also said they had concerns about Iran’s prisons and jails being overcrowded and dangerous, pointing to allegations of torture, abuse and deaths that followed the mass arrests of 2009. The New Yorkbased Center for Human Rights in Iran says at least three detainees arrested in the recent protests have already died in custody.
“Given the systematic rape and torture of detainees in 2009 in very overcrowded and inhumane conditions, we are extremely worried about the fate of these thousands of detainees and the lack of information and access by their families and lawyers,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the center. “It is a very troubling situation.”
Mahmoud Sadeghi, a reformist lawmaker from Tehran, offered the new figures for those arrested in a report carried Tuesday by Parliament’s official news website. Authorities previously spoke of hundreds of arrests in Tehran, while other provinces offered only piecemeal figures, if any at all.
Sadeghi said 3,700 was the best number he could immediately offer, given that various security forces around the country had been involved in the arrests. Iran put more police on the streets over the arrest, including anti-riot squads, while the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard also deployed its motorcycleriding Basij volunteer force.