Jan 04 2021

Iran’s Deputy Chief of Police ordered violence against people who were detained while wielding machetes, according to a video report by the state-run IRNA News Agency. The report showed the arrest of several so-called “troublemakers” or “thugs” who were blindfolded and made to sit on the ground. “If you detain someone during a clash and I see him standing here unharmed, you have to answer as to why he is unharmed,” Deputy Chief of Police Qasem Rezaei tells the police officers standing around him.

“If he is carrying a machete during a clash, I have to see him with a broken arm. I have to see him fall. If he is carrying a machete and frightening people, you must break his leg,” he adds.

“Yes, commander of course,” a ranking officer standing next to him says in the video report.

Qasem Rezaei also implied that suspects did not have any rights and that the police were gracious enough in letting them live.

“The suspect has rights until he is handed over to the law. The fact that he is alive… that is the law. The law says he is to stay alive. The law says someone who creates terror and fear is a mohareb (enemy of God),” he said in vague terms.

This is while even according to Iran’s laws, a court must rule on the charges brought against a suspect.

Moharebeh or “enmity against God” is a vague term used against dissidents and anyone else who threatens the regime’s “security”.

Before this on December 25, state-run TV aired a report called “Bullets Await Disrupters of Security” and quoted police officials as saying they would open direct fire against phone and car thieves.

The report showed images of thieves who had been shot. A car belonging to thieves was also showed while the head of Tehran’s Shahrak-e Qarb Police Station said, “They shot the tires this time. Next time they will shoot at them.”

Iranian police are known for their brutality, but the new comments by Deputy Police Chief Qasem Rezaei, blatantly encouraging violence against detainees, still came as a shock to many analysts.

In late 2020, Iran’s state media published several videos and reports of the brutal public degradation of locals who were charged with “public thuggish behavior”. The men were paraded in police trucks, while masked security forces slapped and manhandled them, forcing them to “repent” in public. The so-called “criminals” were paraded in public before they were tried and officially charged only days after their arrest.

In another incident in late October 2020, the police were called to settle a family dispute which led to the death of 30-year-old Mehrdad Sepehri. Mehrdad was killed after the police tasered, pepper-sprayed, and beat him in public while he was handcuffed to a pole in Mashhad, northeastern Iran. His family said he suffocated from the pepper spray.

Source » irannewswire

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