The UN-backed team said 22 civilian men and women were killed. US Central Command has denied responsibility for the strike on Lamerd.
Experts cite crimes against humanity’ by Iran’s government
The team found that killings by state security forces in Iran have occurred on a “staggering scale,” and civilians faced “gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by their own government.”
Iranian security forces carried out “violent repression” over the last two years by firing assault rifles into crowds, beating protesters and arresting healthcare workers, among other things, the team said. Detainees faced torture, and were deprived of legal counsel, leaving their families “in the dark” about their whereabouts, the experts said.
The Tehran government intensified the use of the death penalty, and said more than 70 people – including five women and three boys – remain at “imminent risk of execution,” they added.
“The report concluded that many of these gross violations amount to crimes against humanity — including murder, imprisonment, torture, and other inhumane acts committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack on civilians,” the statement said.
Both US and Iran should provide reparations, they say
The experts said the United States and Iran should halt all rights violations and crimes, and provide “full reparations to victims.”
The report, built on a “victims-centred approach,” was based on interviews with 73 people both inside and outside Iran, along with documentation, satellite imagery, photographic and video material and information from “credible” organizations and experts, the experts wrote.
The ongoing conflict that has driven people from their homes in Iran as well as an internet shutdown and a lack of full cooperation from the two governments partially impeded the team’s efforts to get information.
Nearly three dozen requests from the experts for information from Iran’s government went unanswered, they said, as have requests in June to the US government for information and meetings with officials.
