Bloomberg: An international committee of lawyers released a list of 74 people that they said were killed by Iranian security forces during the clashes that followed Iran’s disputed presidential elections last month. By Celestine Bohlen
July 16 (Bloomberg) — An international committee of lawyers released a list of 74 people that they said were killed by Iranian security forces during the clashes that followed Iran’s disputed presidential elections last month.
The list includes names and the circumstances of each death, including that of a 19-year-old who died in prison this week, more than three weeks after his arrest.
Also released at a Paris press conference today were the names of 913 people arrested during and after the massive street protests against the June 12 vote, in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected to a second term. They include lawyers, students, a university director and an Islamic cleric arrested on June 28 during a service at a mosque.
Information for both lists came from victims’ families and resistance groups inside Iran, according to a Paris-based exiled Iranian opposition organization that backs the newly formed lawyers’ committee.
Maryam Rajavi, president of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, said there were many more victims of the unrest. By her estimate, as many as 300 people were killed during the protests, 10,000 were detained and 5,000 are still in jail, many subject to torture. The lists only include cases confirmed by witnesses, she said.
“The regime of the mullahs is at its weakest point in 30 years,” she said. She called on Western governments to put greater pressure on Iran to hold new a election and release political prisoners.
Defense of Victims
The International Lawyers’ Committee for the Defense of Victims of the Repression of the Uprising in Iran, made up of a dozen lawyers from several European countries, was formed to help defend those arrested and, where possible, put together cases to be brought before courts outside Iran.
“What happened in Tehran last month confirms that Iran is at the top of the list of states that torture,” said Jean- Pierre Spitzer, a French lawyer and one of the committee’s founders.
He and William Bourdon, another French member of the group, have represented the People’s Mujahedeen, which was removed from the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations in January. The group is still under investigation in France, and remains on the U.S. terrorist list.
The Mujahedeen, created in 1965 as a Marxist Islamic group, say they have renounced violence and support a secular and democratic Iran. They are part of the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran.
