Iranian general acknowledges over 300 dead in anti-government protests
- Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander gives death toll figure as nationwide demonstrations showed no sign of abating
- Hundreds of people have died in protests that were sparked by the death in custody of a 22-year old Kurdish woman on September 16
An Iranian general acknowledged that more than 300 people have been killed in the unrest surrounding nationwide protests, giving the first official word on casualties in two months.
That estimate is considerably lower than the toll reported by Human Rights Activists in Iran, a US-based group that has been closely tracking the protests since they erupted after the September 16 death of a young woman being held by the country’s morality police.
The activist group says 451 protesters and 60 security forces have been killed since the start of the unrest and that more than 18,000 people have been detained.
The protests were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.
They quickly escalated into calls for the overthrow of Iran’s theocracy and pose one of the most serious challenges to the ruling clerics since the 1979 revolution that brought them to power.
General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the aerospace division of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, was quoted by a website close to the Guard as saying that more than 300 people have been killed, including “martyrs”, an apparent reference to security forces.