Contradictory claims given on number killed in Iranian protests

Aug 13, 2009, 7:20 GMT

   Tehran - While the Iranian opposition said 69 people were killed during recent post-election protests, an Iranian lawmaker said the number was 23, the labour news agency ILNA reported Thursday.

   Alireza Hosseini-Beheshti, an ally of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi, said 69 demonstrators were killed in the unrest over alleged fraud in the June 12 presidential election and a list of the dead was presented to parliament for further investigation.

   However, one of the members of a committee investigating the deaths as well as the situation of protestors who have been detained said the toll was a third of that given by Hosseini-Beheshti.

   'According to our information, which is, however, not official, 23, including ordinary people as well as Revolutionary Guards and police forces, were killed,' said parliament deputy Hassan Dogani.

   He declined to disclose the source of the figure.

   International human rights groups said they believe the number of the dead is far higher than the official figures.

   Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, who has not entered Iran since the unrest and has reportedly remained in South Korea, put the death toll at about 100.

   The opposition has also challenged the number the government has given for the detainees, 110, saying instead that about 220 people were still detained, including demonstrators, students, journalists, dissidents and former reformist officials.

   The Iranian judiciary had initially said that more than 1,000 people were arrested in the unrest but this week changed the number to more than 4,000 detained in the initial phase of the protests in mid-June, of which the vast majority has been released.

   ILNA also reported that after Monday's meeting between representatives of Moussavi, who ran unsuccessfully in the June election, and the parliamentary inquiry committee, former vice president and current detainee Mohammad-Ali Abtahi was allowed to meet and have dinner with his family in Evin prison in northern Tehran.

   The committee also visited Mostafa Tajzadeh, a reformist activist and fierce opponent of re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in Evin prison.

   Dogani also told ILNA that 16 students were still detained in the prison.

   The Iranian judiciary has so far held two hearings against the detainees and accused them of espionage and efforts to topple the ruling Islamic system in Iran through a 'velvet revolution.'

   While categorically denying the charges, Moussavi has decried the hearings as 'show trials' that would only discredit the country.