Human Rights Lawyer on Iran: ‘Our Beautiful Country Has Become a Cemetery’

More than 36,500 killed in deadliest two days in Iran protest crackdown: report (NY Post)

More than 36,500 Iranians were allegedly killed during a brutal, two-day crackdown against anti-regime protesters, the deadliest in the history of the Islamic Republic, according to a new report.

The latest estimates paint a horrific image of the violence that fell across Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 when Tehran’s security forces opened fire on thousands of civilians protesting the government’s rule and failure to fix the nation’s ailing economy.

Iranian security forces have stormed hospitals and arrested wounded protesters in response to the unrest — with even celebrities swept up in the crackdown, according to reports.

Despite downplaying the death toll in recent weeks, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ own records allegedly acknowledge that more than 36,000 people were killed during the two-day crackdown, sources from the Supreme National Security Council told Iran International.

Veteran Human Rights lawyer Dr. Payam Akhavan gives perspective on the horrors in Iran:

“We may not know the exact number [of casualties] because of the internet blackout, but by any plausible estimate, this is the worst mass murder In the contemporary history of Iran, our beautiful country has become a cemetery in which the hopes of our youth are buried. I began my career as a UN human rights officer here in Geneva in 1993. During the war in the former Yugoslavia, I went on to serve as a prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague. I helped draft the indictment for the Reza and Genocide, in which some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were massacred during July of 1995. By comparison, at least twice, that number has been killed in Iran in half the time. This is an extermination, and unlike Bosnia, there is no war between military forces. There is only a war by the Islamic Republic against unarmed youth, crying for a better future” (Akhavan).

More on Akhavan (Massey College).

Khamenei’s ‘Show No Mercy’ Order Leads to Unspeakable Slaughter of Innocents

We were aware of the fact that the death toll in Iran, initiated by an order from Khamenei early this month, was brutal. Just how brutal, how macabre, we’re just beginning to learn. Amit Segal: on the night of January 8—when the internet was shut off—the streets of Iran saw the worst massacre in the history of the Islamic Republic, and among the deadliest days worldwide in a generation. The regime opened fire on thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of their own citizens. Morgues overflowed, bodies lay in the streets, and families were torn apart. Some estimates place casualties from the protests as high as 20,000; I suspect it could be higher. It was a crime on an almost unimaginable scale—and it will be answered (Segal).

And now—the consequences. New York Times: On Friday, Jan. 9, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered the Supreme National Security Council, the body tasked with safeguarding the country, to crush the protests by any means necessary, according to two Iranian officials briefed on the ayatollah’s directive. Security forces were deployed with orders to shoot to kill and to show no mercy, the officials said. The death toll surged (New York Times).

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