Taraneh: Iranian Rape Victim Reported Dead

The story of 'Taraneh' first emerged on a couple of farsi blogs.

Then it was picked up by the Huffington Post, which admitted that the story lacked verification.

According to the Post's account, Taraheh M. (Mousavi) , a 28-year-old Iranian woman was detained on Friday June 19 (incorrect -it was June 28) at the Ghoba mosque in Tehran. Taraneh, whose first name is Persian for "song," was reportedly moved around Iran's detention system and her family could not locate her.

Fast-forward to recent days, when her family reportedly got an anonymous phone call tipping them off that Taraneh had been admitted to hospital. The caller gave details of injuries to Taraneh consistent with rape. When the family went to the hospital they found that Taraneh was only briefly there, unconscious all the while.

Yesterday, the Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran called for her release. Today one of the blogs originally covering the story reported that the family were informed yesterday that a burned corpse matching Taraneh’s description had been found in the desert between Karaj and Qazvin. They were threatened to keep quiet about the affair.

According to the blog report, the family went to Ghazvin and recovered her body, but are close-mouthed about funeral arrangements.

Taraneh has already been celebrated online as a victim of brutal gang rape by sub-human Basiji security forces. However, that outrage is based solely on some Twittered blog reports. No professional journalist has reported on this from immediate sources. Even the claim of rape comes only via an alleged anonymous call.

Taraneh's story is tragic. If true.

The latter is the question.

Source reports: 1 2 3 4

92 Killed in Tehran Say Doctors Who Fled

One of a pair of Iranian doctors, who fled the capital to France says an unofficial tally by medical staff at Tehran area hospitals counted 92 violent deaths related to conflicts with security forces. The death toll is considerably at variance with an official figure of 17 deaths.

The account of events in Tehran by the doctors, who declined to be identified for reasons of personal safety has been published today in the online edition of the French newspaper Le Figaro. They say that intimidation prevented them revealing the scale of casualties but motivated them to flee to France to reveal the details.

Among the dead were an eight months pregnant woman and six young males found dead in Shahriar, on the outskirts of the capital. "They all died from wounds in the neck," said the second unidentified doctor, quoting information from a trusted medical colleague. "Their skulls had been smashed and their brains had been opened, presumably to retrieve the bullet and destroy evidence of the crime."

On June 15th, dubbed "Black Monday" by the second doctor, the Rasoul Akram Hospital, near Tehran University, received 38 casualties, including 28 wounded and 10 dead.

"We found that the bullets had passed through the torsos diagonally, which means they were fired from above - ie a roof," says the second doctor.

To conceal the nature of the assaults, doctors at Tehran hospitals were forced to certify that the deceased died of natural causes. A colleague of the second doctor who was on emergency duty at Erfan Hospital, paid a price for refusing to cooperate. "After being missing for thirty-six hours, he was found half-conscious and disfigured on the sidewalk near the hospital," he told Le Figaro.

"In several hospitals - including Rasoul Akram and Imam Khomeini - we organized sit-in protests. But state television, they said it was a strike for better wages."

Due to resistance by medical staff, the bodies of some protesters were speedily removed. "We think they were transferred to the Baqiatollah military hospital or a place unknown to the general public," says the doctor. Then, under the pretext of "organ donation", the evidence of bullet wounds were excised. Families were forced to go along with the deception in order to recover the remains for burial.

The Le Figaro article adds that a witness in Tehran, contacted by telephone told the newspaper that burials in the public cemetery at Behecht-e Zahra take place under surveillance, with the cause of death prohibited to be indicated on gravestones.

Original Le Figaro article >

100 Protesters Killed and 2,700 Detained

According to Iranian journalist Omid Habibinia, in excess of one hundred protesters have been killed in the course of the election crisis. Quoted in the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, he also reports [english] that 2,700 people have so far been incarcerated and 50 journalists arrested.

"According to our records more than 100 people were killed between Tehran and other Iranian cities. On June 20th alone, more than 30 people were killed by the police and the militias.... A few bodies have been returned families on assurance that there was no funeral or talk of what had happened.... Hospitals were required to provide certificates of death with a diagnosis of heart attacks or car accidents..."

On his Twitter feed, Omid reports that hundreds of detainees families gathered in front of Evin Prison in Tehran again today, Sunday 5th July, 2009.