Iran police ‘set loose to brutalize protesters’
Outrage over video footage
The regime in Tehran faced more international outrage on Wednesday after new video footage emerged of Iranian security forces viciously beating protesters.
One video widely shared on social media showed a dozen riot police beating a man at night on a street in southern Tehran. One of the officers ran the man over with a motorbike, and another shot him at close range.
Rights groups demanded a UN investigation.
“This shocking video … is another horrific reminder that the cruelty of Iran’s security forces knows no bounds,” Amnesty International said.
“Amid a crisis of impunity, they’re given free rein to brutally beat and shoot protesters.”
Iran’s police said the incident in the video would be investigated. “The police do not approve of harsh and unconventional treatment, the offending police officers will certainly be dealt with according to the law,” they said.
The admission is a further sign of disarray in the Tehran regime over how to react to the wave of protests that have swept Iran since the Sept. 16 death in morality police custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, a Kurdish woman detained for wearing her hijab in an “insufficiently modest” manner.
Security forces have launched a brutal crackdown in which at least 450 protesters have been killed and more than 25,000 arrested, but there is no sign of a let-up in the unrest as Iranians take to the streets demanding political change.
Iranian leaders have tried to blame the US and other Western powers for instigating the protests. US officials who supported the unrest were “shameless,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday.
“Those who think the US is an untouchable power are wrong,” Khamenei said. “It is completely vulnerable as seen with current events.”
Iranian MP Mohammad Saleh Jokar said Iranians living abroad who were “provoking riots” at home should have their citizenship revoked.
The protests have also hit Iran’s currency, which has lost nearly 7 percent of its value, with the US dollar selling for 342,600 rials on the unofficial market on Wednesday.
The latest Iranian public figure to be caught up in the crisis is Toomaj Salehi, a rapper who disappeared last weekend after denouncing the regime and supporting the protests.
“You are dealing with a mafia that is ready to kill the entire nation ... in order to keep its power, money and weapons,” Salehi said.
Iranian authorities published video footage on Wednesday in which the rapper, wearing a blindfold and looking bloodied and bruised, said he had “made a mistake.”
Rights groups said he had clearly been tortured.