This submission is authored by Justice for Iran, on the basis of the organisation’s research and investigation into the Iranian authorities’ resort to unlawful lethal force, in the context of the nationwide protests that occurred across Iran in November 2019, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of unarmed protestors.
Research conducted by Justice for Iran for this submission demonstrates that between the 15th and 18th of November 2019, the Iranian authorities committed grave human rights violations, including violations of the right to life, by extensively re- sorting to unlawful lethal force against unarmed protestors who posed no imminent threat to life.
The organisation has documented incidents of the use of unlawful lethal force in 39 cities across 15 provinces, over the course of just five days, resulting in hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries. It must be emphasised here that this submission only includes the evidence Justice for Iran has been able to gather and verify in a short period of time, and despite serious obstacles imposed by the Iranian authorities on the flow of information in Iran. This is, therefore, by no means exhaustive of such incidents and can only partly reflect the scale and gravity of the situation.
As detailed in the following sections, investigations conducted by the organisation have further established that the Interior Minister at the national level, as well as local governments and City Security Councils at the local level, have been involved in issuing ‘shooting orders’. Unlawful lethal force has been deployed on the ground by forces falling under the Islamic Republic of Iran’s police force as well as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Basij militias.
In light of the grave human rights violations documented in this submission, Justice for Iran calls on the Council of the European Union to reaffirm its determination to continue to address human rights abuses in Iran, and to adopt restrictive measures against 35 individuals who were amongst those responsible for violating the right to life of protesters and other civilians, as detailed in this submission.
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