‘Horrific pattern’: Amnesty says 106 killed in Iran protests

Rights group calls for end to ‘brutal crackdown’ of anti-government demonstrations, reporting 106 deaths in 21 cities. Days of protests in Iran over rising fuel prices and a subsequent government crackdown have killed more than 100 people across the country, according to rights group Amnesty International. In a statement on Tuesday, the UK-based organisation accused Iranian security forces of using “excessive and lethal force” to crush the demonstrations since they started on Friday. “At least 106 protesters in 21 cities have been killed, according to credible reports,” Amnesty said. “The real death toll may be much higher with some reports suggesting as many as 200 have been killed.” No immediate reaction was available from Iran’s government to the estimated death toll. According to figures collated by Al Jazeera, at least 11 people - five security forces and six civilians - have been killed in the unrest. Iranian authorities have not offered a definitive account of how many people have been injured or killed in the protests. But the semi-official ISNA news agency reported late on Monday that three members of Iran’s security forces were killed by “rioters” near the capital, Tehran. Raha Bahreini, Amnesty’s researcher on Iran and Human Rights, said their death toll was based on information received from witness accounts on the ground, human rights activists inside the country, as well as journalists and reliable sources outside the country. “The information that we have obtained reveals a horrific pattern of unlawful killings across the country,” she told Al Jazeera from London. “The information that we’ve received so far suggests that in a pattern consistent with past practices, security forces are even refusing to return the bodies of many of those killed to their families, or are forcing families to bury their loved ones under rushed circumstances and without an independent autopsy, which is of course against international law and standards.”