Over 300 people have died in Iran since the start of the protests sparked by the death in custody, on 16 September, of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman accused of breaking the strict dress code for women, a general of the Revolutionary Guards announced on Monday evening.
“Everyone in the country was affected by the death of this lady,” General Amirali Hajizadeh, commander of the aerospace force of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s ideological army, said in a video posted online by the Mehr news agency
“I don’t have the latest statistics, but I think we may have had more than 300 martyrs and people killed among the best children of this country as a result of this incident,” he added, referring to both law enforcement and protesters.
The death toll includes dozens of law enforcement officials killed in clashes with protesters or assassinated, according to Iranian authorities.
This figure is close to the one released by Iran Human Rights (IHR), an NGO based in Norway, which reports that at least 416 people “were killed in the repression of demonstrations in Iran”.
According to the organisation, this figure includes those killed in the protests over the death of Mahsa Amini and those who died in the violence in Sistan-Baluchistan, a province in south-eastern Iran.
