UK condemns Iran protester crackdown

The UK goverment has in a recent report condemned the killing of at least 30 people in Iran during security force crackdowns on protests throughout 2011. A report by the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) published this week stated that throughout the past year, “there has been no improvement in the human rights situation in Iran.” In 2011, protests occurred in Azerbaijan province in north-western Iran against the Iranian parliament’s rejection of a bill to maintain a natural salt-lake in the area, Lake Orumiyeh. Meanwhile, the worst violent protests were seen in Khuzestan, where local Arabs planned to march in solidarity with other protests across the region. “Iran witnessed other protests and subsequent violence by security forces throughout the year,” the report stated. “Reports indicated that several hundred protestors were arrested and live ammunition was used, with more than 30 people killed,” it added. The report also noted that a number of political opposition leaders remain detained without charge since February, while non-government sponsored protests were brutally crushed. “Human rights defenders and lawyers continued to be detained or forced to flee the country,” the FCO said. But the report cited a positive move by Iran when over 100 political prisoners were released in August. They were thought to have been arrested following the protests over the disputed elections in 2009. “While a positive move, we remain concerned about the fate of the thousands of others arrested for their part in protests since 2009 and call for their release,” the FCO stated. Also in the report, the FCO expressed its concerns over Iran’s use of the death penalty in 2011, “including the scale of its use, methods of implementation and its application to juveniles.” The report stated that at least 650 people were executed in Iran in the course of the year, according to reliable NGO local media reports. Meanwhile, NGOs reported numerous cases of torture and other ill-treatment against detained persons in 2011, the FCO said, with reports received by a United Nations Human Rights organization that had “frequently communicated the use of physical and psychological mistreatment and torture” of detainees.