Some Iran detairces were tortured to death Karot IReuters,com ht ://www ,reuters ,com ardc1ePrint?artic1eId —USTRE57C3VJ2OO9O813
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Some Iran detainees were tortured to
death: Karoubi
Thu AL 13, 2009 115pm EDT
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's defeated presidential candidate Mehdi Karoubi
said on Thursday that some of those arrested after the June presidential
election were tortured to death, his website reported.
“We observe that in an Islamic country some young people are beaten to
death just for chanting slogans in (the post- election) protests,” Karoubi's
Etemademelli website said.
Karoubi said on Sunday that some protesters, men and women, had been
raped in detention. His allegation was rejected by Iranian authorities as
“baseless.”
He repeated the allegation on Thursday, calling for the formation of an
independent fact-finding committee to review his evidence in “a calm
atmosphere where relatives of detainees and freed protesters can talk.”
“Some of the detainees said they were forced to take off their clothes. Then
they were made to go on their hands and knees and were ridden (by prison
guards),” Karoubi said.
“Or the prison authorities put them on top of each other while they were
naked,” Karoubi added.
Many of the post-election detainees were held in south Tehran's Kahrizak
prison, built to house people breaching vice laws. At least three people died
in custody there and widespread anger erupted as reports of abuse in the
jail spread.
The abuse allegations, also rejected by Tehran's police chief, have created
a rift among hardline politicians, many of whom backed President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's re-election.
The disputed election was followed by the worst unrest in Iran since its
1979 Islamic revolution.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ai Khamenei ordered the closure of the Kahrizak
prison last month.
(Editing by Michael Roddy)
(Tehran newsroom)
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