Rights violations increasing in Iran: HRW

Iran's crackdown on dissidents since the controversial June 2009 elections is 'broader and the abuses more flagrant than previously reported,' Human Rights Watch said in a new report.
The 19-page report documents 'widespread human rights abuses, including extra-judicial killings; rapes and torture; violations of the rights to freedom of assembly and expression; and thousands of arbitrary arrests and detentions' against dissidents since the election, the group said in a statement late Wednesday.
The Iranian government is trying to use anniversary celebrations 'to deflect attention from its human rights violations,' said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
'Instead, it should use the occasion to finally hold the abusers accountable,' he said.
The report from the independent rights group is based on 'extensive phone interviews and email correspondence with protesters, journalists, human rights defenders, and the families of detained political figures'.
On June 26 2009, guards at the Kahrizak detention center outside Tehran again 'set up fake executions, cursing and randomly beating people who asked for water or to use the toilet,' an unnamed former detainee told HRW.
The prisoner then recounted in graphic detail of how he was kicked in the stomach until he threw up blood after he protested, then sodomized until he passed out.
According to HRW, the worst abuses 'against ordinary protesters took place at police stations and detention centers, most notoriously at the Kahrizak detention center.
'At least three detainees died due to injuries sustained there, as a parliamentary inquiry has acknowledged. Former prisoners held in police detention centers have alleged that authorities sexually assaulted and raped them while in detention'.
Authorities also abused detainees in Evin, 'a large prison complex where Human Rights Watch has previously documented systematic abuses,' the statement read.
The Iranian government 'is carrying on its campaign of intimidation, arrests, and convictions of individuals for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly. It has neither ended its crackdown nor held those responsible to account.' HRW said. (AFP - Feb 11, 2010)