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Iran opposition leader calls for UN enquiry into "Bloody Friday" |
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Saturday, 16 April 2005 |
Iran Focus
 Paris, Apr. 16 – A key Iranian opposition leader called on the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to send a fact-finding mission to the south-eastern city of Ahwaz to investigate events there on a day that she described as “Bloody Friday".
Anti-government protests erupted yesterday through the night in the city of Ahwaz, in Khuzestan province, leaving at least six people dead and hundreds injured or arrested.
Fierce fighting occurred when Iran’s State Security Forces were dispatched to quell angry residents who were complaining of government plans to redefine the ethnic make-up of the province.
“I offer my condolences to the families of those killed and pray for the recovery of the injured”, Maryam Rajavi said in a statement issued today by her office north of Paris.
I urge the people in Khuzestan and throughout Iran, from all ethnic backgrounds, to rush to the aid of the people of Ahwaz, especially those of Arab descent under repression", she said.
Rajavi accused Iran’s religious government of carrying out a policy of “ethnic cleansing in Khuzestan province”. “The Iranian people have not forgotten the killings of their compatriots in Khuzestan in 1979 and 1980 at the hands of butchers such as Revolutionary Guard Commander Ali Shamkhani, the current Defence Minister", she added.
Some 3,000 residents gathered in Kurdvani Square on Friday morning and thousands more in Sheling-Abad, Malashiya, Ameri, and Kut Abdollah districts of the city of Ahwaz, demanding the authorities stop what they called “ethnic cleansing”.
In the ensuing chaos officials of the SSF at first fired tear gas at the demonstrators and then went on to shoot at protestors. Demonstrators ransacked a number of government buildings, police stations, and set fire to the Agriculture Bank. |
