Iranian security forces intensify crackdown in Kurdistan

Source: The Guardian

Iranian security forces intensify crackdown in Kurdistan

Reports of indiscriminate violence come as UK ambassador summoned by Tehran over sanctions

Weronika Strzyżyńska and Haroon Janjua
Tue 11 Oct 2022 14.27 BST
Last modified on Tue 11 Oct 2022 16.12 BST

Rights groups have sounded the alarm over an intensifying crackdown by Iranian security forces against protesters in the western province of Kurdistan, as Tehran summoned the British ambassador in response to UK sanctions against the morality police.

Security forces in the provincial capital, Sanandaj, have used firearms and fired teargas “indiscriminately”, including into people’s homes, Amnesty International reported.

A female protester in the city told the Guardian that a “massacre” by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was taking place. “They have shut down the city and are slaughtering people inside with guns and bombs just because they are chanting for freedom,” she said.

Despite the authorities’ disruption of internet, videos showing apparent gunfire in Sanandaj have been posted online by the Norway-based human rights group Hengaw.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/11/iran-alarm-raised-over-bloody-crackdown-on-protesters-in-kurdistan