Doctors denounce terror in hospitals

Le Figaro, July 6, 2009

While passing through Paris, they denounced the climate of terror that exists in hospitals where the injured anti-Ahmadinejad protesters have been transferred.

They have seen too many. For fear of reprisals, they kept silent. But passing through France for a few days, they want to break the wall of fear, at any price. "In Tehran, we are the powerless witnesses of real crimes against humanity," says one of two Iranian doctors, met this weekend in Paris, and who prefers to remain anonymous for security reasons. "Since the beginning of the anti-Ahmadinejad protests, he said, militiamen and security agents in civilian clothing have established a policy of terror in the hospitals. They are conducting a hunt without mercy against the injured. "It all started on Saturday 13 June - the first day of protest against the election results. They began to ask for a list of admitted wounded from the hospitals that were located close to the events," says the doctor. Objective barely veiled: "identify the protesters injured, and then take them to court, accusing them of disturbing public order," he says.

Over 92 dead

According to several testimonies that circulate among the medical staff, Rasoul Akram Hospital, not far from Tehran University, received 38 corps, including 28 wounded and 10 dead from the "Black Monday" (June 15). "We found that the bullets had passed through the torsos diagonally, which means they were fired from above - i.e. a roof," says the second doctor.

According to an official report, at least 17 people have been killed since the beginning of the conflict. However, a list quietly made by the nursing staff from different hospitals showed that to date more than 92 people died in Tehran and its suburbs. A woman eight months pregnant is one of the victims. Shot and killed, near the presidential palace, she was then transported to the hospital. Other disturbing stories are beginning to emerge in broad daylight, as one of the six corpses of young men found last week in Shahriar, on the outskirts of the capital. "They all died from wounds in the neck. Their skulls had been smashed and their brains had been opened, presumably to retrieve the bullet to erase the trace of the crime," says the second doctor informed of this terrible massacre by a trusted colleague.

To cover this kind of attack, the doctors have been asked to certify that the persons whose bodies have been transferred to their hospitals died during surgery. "In several hospitals - including Rasoul Akram and Imam Khomeini - we have organized a sit-in protest. But state television said it was a strike for better wages. That's terribly shocking," says the second doctor. One of his friends, doctor on call for emergencies Erfan Hospital, has been "punished" for having stood up to the militia. "After missing for thirty-six hours, he was found half-conscious and disfigured on the sidewalk of the hospital," he says.

Funerals under surveillance

Faced with the resistance of a part of the medical profession, the bodies of protesters were quickly taken away. "We think they were transferred to the military hospital Baqiatollah or in a place unknown to the general public," says the doctor. Then, under the pretext of "organ donation", the bodies were stripped of all traces of the bullets. "Parents are forced to accept if they want to retrieve the body for burial," he said.

In the main cemetery Behesht-e Zahra, burials take place under surveillance. "It is prohibited to indicate the reason of death on the gravestone," says a witness contacted by telephone in Tehran.