Iran: Doctors denounce terror in the hospitals, Le Figaro International, France (translation)

Iran: Doctors denounce terror in the hospitals

Delphine Minoui Jul 6, 2009
By :Iman Irani

• During a stop in Paris, they denounce the climate of terror holding sway in the hospitals where the wounded from the last few week’s anti-Ahmadinejad demonstrations were taken.

They have seen too much. Fearing reprisal, they kept quiet. But while stopping in France for a few days, they wanted to tear down the wall of fear. At any cost. “In Tehran, we were powerless witnesses of a true crime against humanity”, protested one of the doctors, who we met this weekend in Paris, and who prefers to remain anonymous for reasons of personal safety. “Since the beginning of the anti-Ahmadinejad demonstrations, militias and secret police have imposed a policy of terror in the hospitals. They stalk the wounded without mercy”, he said. “It all began on Saturday June 13, the first day of protests against the election results. First they demanded the list of all admissions to the hospitals in the vicinity of the protests”, the doctor recounted. The reason was clear: “To identify the injured protesters, so that charges could be brought against them for having disturbed the public order”.

More than 92 dead

According to several reports from within the medical community, the Akram Rasoul hospital, located not far from Tehran University, has received 38 bodies since ‘Black Monday’ (June 15), including 28 injured and 10 dead on arrival. “One could see that bullets had traveled diagonally through their torsos, showing that they had been fired upon from above, from a roof”, comments the second doctor.

According to the official count, 17 people have been killed since the beginning of the protests. However, an initial count quietly performed by medical personnel reveals that so far more than 92 people are dead in and around Tehran. A woman in the eighth month of pregnancy was among the victims. Killed by a gunshot not far from the presidential palace, she was then transported to the hospital. Other troubling accounts are beginning to come to light. Among these is a report of the bodies of six young men that were found last week in Shahriar, at the outskirts of the capital. “They were killed by neck shot. Their skulls had been crushed and their brains opened, without doubt to retrieve the bullet to remove the traces of the crime”, stated the second doctor, informed by this horrible massacre by a colleague.

To provide cover for this kind of attacks, doctors have been forced to attest that the those whose bodies had been brought to their hospitals had ‘died on the operating table’. “In several hospitals, including Akram Rasoul and Imam Khomeini, we organized sit-in protests. But on state television, they reported it as a strike for better salaries. Incredibly shocking!” reveals the second doctor. One of his friends, an emergency physician in Erfan hospital, was even “punished” for standing up to the militias. “He disappeared for thirty-six hours, and was then found half-conscious and disfigured outside the hospital”.

Burial under strict surveillance

Over the objections of medical staff, bodies from the demonstrations were quickly moved elsewhere. “We believe they were transferred to the Baqiatollah military hospital or some other undisclosed location”, notes the doctor. Then, under the pretext of “organ donation”, all traces of bullets were removed from the bodies. “The parents were force to accept this if they wanted to retrieve the body for burial”.
In Bahecht-e Zahra cemetery, burials are conducted under strict surveillance. “The tombstone may not state the cause of death”, according to a witness in Tehran contacted by telephone.

Source:http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2009/07/06/01003-20090706ARTFIG00225-des-medecins-iraniens-temoignent-de-la-repression-.php