In early October, a few month into Iran’s anti-government protests, a Tehran resident reported seeing a minimum of three protesters being shoved into an ambulance throughout a student-led demonstration. However the resident mentioned the protesters didn’t look like injured.
Across the identical time, Niki, a college scholar in Tehran, mentioned she noticed safety forces utilizing ambulances to detain protesters at an intersection.
“They grabbed individuals,” she mentioned. “They put them within the ambulance, turned off the lights. There have been a lot of individuals within the again.” The ambulance then drove down the road, she mentioned. “I didn’t see the place they dropped off the individuals, however I noticed that there have been regular individuals inside, like younger women.”
Protests calling for widespread social and political change that erupted in September have led to a brutal crackdown by Iran’s safety forces, with greater than 14,000 individuals arrested, in accordance with the United Nations. At the very least 326 individuals have been killed, in accordance with Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based NGO. The demonstrations started following the demise of Mahsa Amini, identified by her first Kurdish surname Jina, within the custody of Iran’s morality police and have been primarily led by ladies.
A part of that crackdown, in accordance with witnesses and dozens of movies and pictures reviewed by The New York Instances, has concerned using ambulances by the safety forces to infiltrate protests and detain protesters. Almost all the witnesses interviewed by The Instances spoke on the situation of anonymity for worry of retribution from the federal government.
Such use of ambulances, which specialists say violates worldwide norms of medical impartiality, exhibits the lengths to which the federal government has gone to attempt to quell the nationwide demonstrations.
“Persons are going to be afraid to hunt well being care, which means extra individuals will die,” mentioned Rohini Haar, an assistant adjunct professor on the College of Public Well being at U.C. Berkeley. “Well being care has credibility due to the thought of impartiality. It’s the fundamental concept of ‘do no hurt’ and misusing ambulances clearly violates that.”
Safety Forces Utilizing Ambulances
In an interview over an encrypted messaging app, a 37-year-old restaurant employee described seeing ambulances getting into college campuses throughout protests nearly day-after-day, and uniformed safety forces rising from them. He works close to three main universities in Tehran the place he sees every day protests. He additionally attended different protests and mentioned he noticed safety forces utilizing ambulances there too.
Witnesses who attended protests in Tehran spoke about seeing plainclothes cops, referred to as Basiji, forcing college students into the again of an ambulance at an illustration at Sharif College on Oct. 2.
One of many witnesses, in an interview over an encrypted messaging app, reported seeing Basiji beating one of many college students, who was on the bottom and lined in bruises, with a baton earlier than shoving him into an ambulance together with one other protester and driving away.
Extra on the Protests in Iran
Cities throughout Iran have been embroiled in demonstrations prompted by the demise of a younger girl, Mahsa Amini, whereas she was in police custody.
Within the early days of the protests, protesters had been on the streets in Rasht, the capital metropolis of Gilan Province in northern Iran.
One video, whose location was mentioned by a Twitter person and independently verified by The Instances, which appears to have been filmed from inside a automotive, exhibits an ambulance on hearth, apparently after being focused by protesters. Somebody within the automotive shouts, “They’re rescuing the ladies! Come out!” because the automotive nears the ambulance.
The video exhibits a person carrying what resembles the uniform of Iran’s nationwide police drive leaving the ambulance and operating away from the automobile. He’s briefly chased by a gaggle of individuals earlier than escaping.
The Instances confirmed the video to Afshon Ostovar, an affiliate professor on the Naval Postgraduate College in Monterey, Calif., who focuses on Iranian nationwide safety.
What we take into account earlier than utilizing nameless sources. Do the sources know the knowledge? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved dependable prior to now? Can we corroborate the knowledge? Even with these questions happy, The Instances makes use of nameless sources as a final resort. The reporter and a minimum of one editor know the id of the supply.
“That positively seems like a NAJA officer,” Mr. Ostovar mentioned in an interview, utilizing the acronym for Iran’s nationwide police drive. “He’s not a paramedic. The uniform and firearm are useless giveaways.” The firearm that Mr. Ostovar refers to may very well be within the holster clipped to the person’s again as he runs away from the ambulance within the video.
Although the video doesn’t present who torched the ambulance, one other video from a special angle exhibits the identical ambulance being shoved and jostled by a crowd of individuals.
Ambulances at Police Stations
The Instances analyzed and geolocated movies and pictures displaying ambulances getting into or exiting police stations, or positioned simply exterior them, in a minimum of six places throughout the nation (in a single case the situation was first mentioned by a Twitter person).
In two of the places there are hospitals close by in accordance with Google Maps, however the video from one in every of these places exhibits the ambulance clearly going into the police station.
Although the movies and pictures don’t present who’s being transported, a former emergency room doctor mentioned there’s no professional medical motive for ambulances to be at police stations.
“I can say with almost one hundred pc accuracy that this by no means occurs,” mentioned Dr. Amir Alishahi Tabriz, who beforehand labored within the Loghman-e Hakim and Torfeh hospitals in Tehran in 2013. Now primarily based in the US, he works with docs in Iran to assist their sufferers get care after being injured in protest.
“Individuals don’t really feel protected to go to pressing care or hospitals. They know that forces are ready for them to seize them,” he mentioned. “When sufferers need assistance, we ship them to well being facilities in the course of the night time.”
Outrage Amongst Iran’s Medical Staff
Using ambulances to detain individuals has outraged Iran’s medical group. A video posted on Twitter on Oct. 4 and verified by The Instances exhibits medical employees demonstrating exterior Razi College Hospital in Rasht, holding indicators that learn, “Basiji will not be college students,” and “Ambulances must be used for transporting sufferers.”
Another video posted on Twitter on Oct. 21, intentionally blurred to guard the id of the topics, exhibits an illustration that seems to be on the Mashhad Medical Society constructing. On the demonstration, a speaker reads from an announcement condemning using ambulance and medical symbols by safety forces: “We wish it to cease to be able to acquire social belief.”
The Instances verified that the room seen within the blurry footage matches archival footage from the Mashhad Medical Society constructing’s amphitheater.
Dr. Haar, with U.C. Berkeley’s College of Public Well being, mentioned that work of the medical group throughout protests and civil disturbances is protected underneath worldwide human rights legislation.
“The ideas of impartiality and independence, of caring for the wounded and never misusing the medical emblem for political acquire, are universally accepted foundations on which your entire medical system depends,” she mentioned. “Medical employees have the duty to deal with the wounded and sick. And the federal government has the duty to assist us try this.”
Other than protests in Rasht and Mashhad, different members of the medical group have voiced their considerations in regards to the misuse of ambulances. On Oct. 22, the Medical Council of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the licensing and regulatory physique for well being care professionals, raised considerations about using ambulances for nonmedical transport.
For a lot of in Iran, using ambulances to suppress protests provides to their mistrust within the nation’s medical system. There have been a number of stories about Iranians who’ve been injured at protests getting detained after receiving medical care in hospitals.
In an interview, one Tehran protester mentioned that many individuals are likely to their accidents at dwelling as a substitute of going to the hospital as a result of a local weather of worry.
“We felt most insecure once we noticed police. However we have now a brand new stage of worry unlocked. Now we really feel the worst pains once we see ambulances,” mentioned one Tehran protester. “And each time we’re caught in site visitors, now the dilemma is, what if there’s an actual affected person in there? Or what in the event that they’re going to kill us?”
Christiaan Triebert, Christoph Koettl and Malachy Browne contributed reporting. Video graphics by James Surdam. Claire Hogan contributed video modifying.
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Supply: NY Times
