Hospitals are no longer places of safety as Iran’s crackdown on anti-government protests impacts all aspects of life, rights groups say, with authorities arresting maimed protesters and even the medics who treat them.
Activists accuse security forces of killing thousands of people and wounding more by directly firing on protesters, often with birdshot that can leave metal pellets lodged in the body until hygienically extracted by a professional.
But rights groups say authorities have raided hospitals searching for people with wounds that suggest they were involved in protests. At least five doctors have meanwhile been arrested for treating them, according to the World Health Organization.
Amnesty International said security forces had "arrested protesters receiving treatment in hospitals," adding it had received information that medical staff in central Isfahan province had been ordered to notify authorities about patients with injuries from gunshots and shotgun pellets.
The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran
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(CHRI) said it "has documented cases in which security forces raided hospitals to identify and arrest protesters injured during demonstrations."
In an apparent response to the charges, Iran’s health ministry this week urged those injured in the protests to "not worry" about going to the hospital and not to treat themselves at home.
According to the Tasnim news agency, Mohammad Raeeszadeh, head of the Medical Council of Iran, said Friday that "only a very limited number" of medical personnel had been arrested over the protests, without indicating why they were held.
"There are no reports of anyone being arrested for seeing patients or performing their professional duties," he added.
’RAIDING MEDICAL FACILITIES’
Sajad Rahimi, 36, from Iran’s Gulf island of Qeshm, was badly maimed after security forces shot at him when he joined a protest in the southern province of Fars at the peak of the movement on January 9, according to Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights.
But, fearing he could be rubbed out by security forces in a "coup de grace," he asked friends not to take him directly to the hospital, according to IHR, which investigated this case, alongside several others, and spoke to the man’s brother.
Eventually, the family transferred him to the hospital, but he died as a result of a deep wound caused by live ammunition and severe bleeding.
"The doctor said that if he had arrived at the hospital just ten minutes earlier, he would probably have survived," his brother told IHR.
The group said it had reports of "security forces raiding certain medical facilities and informal shelters for the maimed in order to arrest medical staff and volunteer first responders."
The Hengaw rights group, also based in Norway, highlighted the case of Dr. Ali Reza Golchni, a physician from the city of Qazvin, northwest of Tehran, who, it said, had been arrested "for providing medical care to injured protesters."
World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "deeply concerned by multiple reports of health personnel and medical facilities in Iran being impacted by the recent insecurity and prevented from delivering their essential services to people requiring care."
He said there were reports of "at least five doctors detained while treating injured patients."
The World Medical Association said it had received reports that security forces arrested injured protesters in both the Isfahan and the southwestern province of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari.
"Hospital staff have also been instructed to report patients suffering gunshot injuries to security authorities, with non-compliance exposing them to prosecution and other reprisals," it said, citing information received by the WMA.
Hengaw also cited the case of Taher Malekshahi, a 12-year-old Kurdish-Iranian boy from Qorveh in western Iran, who was severely injured after being shot in the face and eyes with pellet ammunition.
It said he lost one eye and suffered serious damage to the other, publishing a picture of his face with the boy’s entire forehead pockmarked with pellet wounds.
It said that while he was currently receiving intensive medical treatment in Tehran, "authorities have pressured his family to falsely claim he was maimed by ’terrorists’ in exchange for state recognition as a war-disabled victim."
Activists estimate that over 6,000 people, mostly protesters, were killed in the bloodiest crackdown on dissent since the Islamic Theocratic
Republicwas created in 1979. They worry the number will increase as information trickles out.