Iran 'killing protesters in hospital beds' while patients still wired up to machines, doctor claims
Many wounded patients have allegedly been found with bullet holes in their heads.
The Iranian regime is killing protesters still wired up to machines in their hospital beds as the government’s brutal crackdown on demonstrators continues, a doctor has claimed.
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The death toll in the deadly suppression of unrest is still mounting more than a month after protests first broke out.
More than 6,400 people have been killed and over 51,500 arrested on charges linked to demonstrations, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said on Monday.
According to a health worker named in a report as Dr. R, some of those slaughtered have been killed in their hospital beds.
The medic, who is a member of the Aida Health Alliance, said that many wounded patients have been found with bullet holes in their heads.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is accused of being behind the murders, and has also allegedly arresting several medical staff as they treated the patients.
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“If the patient already had the shot in the head [when they arrived at the hospital], nobody would put the tube or catheter in because they're already dead”, Dr R told the Jerusalem Post.
“So it means they went into the hospital and they killed them on the treatment bed,” they said.
Dr. R also shared chilling images with the newspaper showing bodies in black bags still connected to medical tubes and catheters with bullet wounds.
The images have not been independently verified.
Iran Human Rights director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said: "The testimonies of doctors show that the Islamic Republic has trampled even the most basic human and medical principles and has systematically used hospitals as instruments of repression and killing.
“The deliberate shutdown of ventilators, the prevention of treatment for the injured, and the arrest of patients from hospital beds constitute crimes against humanity and demonstrate the complete collapse of any ethical or legal standards in this government.”
It follows similar reports last month that demonstrators were being executed at point blank range while still connected to heart monitors and breathing tubes.
Some doctors said they attempted to explain that the patients were midway through treatment, but said the security forces were not interested and were taking the patients regardless.
Even those who fled hospital are said to have been hunted down and dealt with by the regime, according to activists.
There are concerns that a similar practice is possible behind bars, with many other protesters rounded up and thrown into prisons and some reports suggesting secret executions without trial were taking place.
Doctors at the time estimated that at least 80,000 litres of blood had been spilled over the course of the uprising – enough to fill a residential swimming pool.
Medics involved with the AIDA Health Alliance say they have identified at least 40 detained health workers across Iran.
Homa Fathi, one of the doctors involved in documenting the cases, told Iran International: “Hospitals are no longer safe places.
“If a doctor treats a protester, questions security forces or refuses to discharge a patient prematurely, that doctor becomes a target.”
Panteha Rezaeian, a physician, told the outlet there have been cases in which doctors have been followed to prevent home treatment and had their homes raided.
“We are seeing people attempt to remove bullets themselves or treat serious injuries at home.
“Some of them die days later, not because their injuries were unsurvivable, but because they were too afraid to seek help.”
Speaking to LBC News' Sandy Warr, Iranian human rights activist Paul Smith said last month that many families are now burying “their children in their own gardens out of fear without even taking them into medical centres”.