Geneva, (EFE).- The UN said today that 23 minors have been killed and many others have been injured in the repression of protests in Iranbeing shot at with live ammunition or metal pellets at close range, or severely beaten.
“Certain schools have been raided and children arrested by security forces. Some directors would also have been arrested,” UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said today.
The agency is aware that the Iranian Ministry of Education itself confirmed a few days ago that an unknown number of children had been sent to psychological treatment centers after being arrested in anti-government protests.
The citizen demonstrations have completed a month, after breaking out following the death of the young Mahsa Amini, 22, arrested three days earlier by the so-called “morality police” for allegedly wearing the veil wrongly and died in custody.
On the other hand, the UN has information about “mass arrests” of human rights defenders, journalists, students, lawyers, environmental activists, artists and anyone who could be perceived as opponents of the regime.
Many of them were sent to the Evin prison, located in Tehran and where last Saturday there was a major fire in which at least eight inmates died and more than sixty were injured, according to official information.
However, the UN considers that the elements of that fire are not clear. Some prisoners were allegedly beaten during the incident and transferred to other places of detention.
The UN has repeatedly denounced situations of torture and medical negligence in Iranian prisons, as well as illegal procedures that affect the rights of detainees, such as denying them access to a lawyer or keeping them incommunicado.
