16 July 2009 / REUTERS, LONDON
A Western-based human rights group said on Wednesday at least 34 people were killed during election protests in Tehran on June 20, about three times the number announced by authorities.
Iranian state television said 10 people were killed and more than 100 injured in the demonstrations against the official election result, which gave a landslide victory to hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The protest went ahead in defiance of a demand from Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that supporters of defeated candidate Mirhossein Mousavi stay off the streets after a week of mainly peaceful demonstrations. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said that the bodies of 34 demonstrators were placed in three Tehran hospital morgues on June 20. "Imam Khomeini Hospital had 19 bodies, Rasool Akram Hospital eight bodies and Loghman Hospital seven bodies," the group said in a statement. "The information was collected by medical staff with access to the morgue records of these hospitals." It said there were other hospitals near the demonstrations that could have received dead or injured protesters.
