On the anniversary of the deadliest day of anti-regime protests in Iran, Amnesty International launched a new microsite, available both in English and Persian, which documents how the lethal crackdown by Iranian authorities that left at least 304 people dead was hidden from the world.
Iranian authorities had deliberately shut down the internet during nationwide protests in November 2019, hiding the true scale of unlawful killings by security forces, the organization reported.
To date, no one has been criminally investigated or held accountable for the killings.
Amnesty International also reiterated its call for member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council to mandate an inquiry into the unlawful killings to ensure those responsible for ordering, planning and carrying out the crimes are brought to justice in fair trials.
Amnesty International's statistics, however, are much lower than the US State Department's estimate of about 1,500 Iranians being slain by the government crackdown.
The State Department’s statistics are supported by a 2019 Reuters report that quoted four Iranian officials as saying that suppressing protests was ordered directly by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
In the absence of online documentation during the internet shutdown in Iran, Amnesty International received information from human rights activists and journalists. To verify and add to these reports, the human rights group interviewed family members and friends, medical workers and eyewitnesses, among others.
Researchers also cross-checked funeral posters, gravesites, death certificates and local media reports.
The result was a detailed record of the killings the internet shutdown tried to hide from the world and the Iranian authorities continue to deny.
“When news of the deadly crackdown began to emerge from Iran last November, the world was shocked by the brutal violence of the security forces. The authorities deliberately blocked internet access inside Iran, hiding the true extent of the horrendous human rights violations that they were carrying out across the country,” said Diana Eltahawy, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
“The government thought they could silence the population by taking the country offline, but the Iranian people were determined to tell the world the truth. Our new website is a tribute to the courage of everyone who captured on camera the scenes of violence that the authorities wanted to keep hidden.”
