Farashgard Condemns Amnesty International and Regime Apologists for Peddling False Reports Related to November 2019 Protests Death Toll
(November 15, 2021) – In November 2019, the Iranian people took to the streets across the country to peacefully protest high gasoline prices, financial corruption and systemic oppression by the Islamic Republic regime. After the Iranian people took to the streets, there were widespread internet outages and disruption by the Islamic Republic and when that didn’t work to get the Iranian people off the streets, the government security and military forces began cracking down on the peaceful protests of Iranian people with live ammunition. According to statistics published by some of the world's leading media outlets, including Reuters, more than 1,500 Iranian citizens were killed by the government on November 15, 16, and 17, 2019. Included in this death toll are women and children of all ages. Other studies on the nationwide mortality statistics in Iran for Fall 2019 suggest the death toll of more than 3,000. There are left-wing human rights organizations such as Amnesty International that cite government-provided statistics claiming only 230 Iranians were killed. Much of this was done under the direct supervision of Ms. Raha Bahreini. Ms. Bahreini is a human rights researcher focused on Iran. While Amnesty International continues to promote false reports, there is a new research group called Iran Protests that launched shortly after the November 2019 protests. Based on their initial investigations, which are still ongoing, Iran Protests has been able to identify at least 800 people by name and location who were murdered during the November 2019 protests. In addition to Amnesty International pushing regime-backed talking points, Ms. Shadi Sadr, the executive director and co-founder of the “Justice for Iran” organization, repeated false narratives of Rouhani's faux-reformist government that the protesters in Mahshahr, the city in Khuzestan province in Iran, were armed. This is not true. There were no armed protesters. Farzad Seifikaran, a journalist, announced on Twitter that in more than 40 videos of Mahshahr protests in November 2019, there was not a single case of an armed citizen. The faux-reformist faction of the regime, particularly the former allies of Akbar Rafsanjani and his family, have a long history of whitewashing the crimes of the Islamic Republic by supporting false narratives particularly regarding the actual number of victims during the November 2019 protests. “The Farashgard Foundation, as the founder of the Iran Protest project, considers the statistics announced by Amnesty International to be fake and will continue its investigation until the list of victims of the crime by the Islamic Republic in November 2019 is completed.” said Mitra Jashni, Executive Director of the Farashgard Foundation