DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s president on Thursday ordered an investigation into the death of a detained man after activists said he was tortured to death by police in the north of the country, the latest such death to attract national attention.
The order came from reform-minded President Masoud Pezeshkian, who was elected last month and had promised during the campaign to end such deaths in custody. In 2022, the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the morality police for allegedly not wearing her headscarf properly, sparked nationwide protests.
In the most recent case, five police officers have already been provisionally arrested and the investigation is ongoing.
Activists identified the dead man as 36-year-old Mohammad Mir Mousavi from the town of Lahijan in Gilan province near the Caspian Sea. They say he was arrested on Saturday after a street brawl and died on Tuesday.
Neither the police nor the government provided further details on why authorities were investigating Mousavi’s death.
However, the human rights group Hengaw reported that Mousavi was being held at a police station in the neighboring town of Langarud. There, they claim, Mousavi was “severely beaten and suffered bleeding.” They released a blurry video showing Mousavi’s back after his death, covered in blood and covered in wounds. They claimed he was killed while his feet and hands were tied.
Mousavi “was killed under torture after his arrest in the prison of the Special Forces of the Law Enforcement Agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Hengaw. “The young man’s family was pressured by the Iranian security authorities not to make this crime public.”
Hengaw identified Mousavi as a member of Iran’s Gilak minority, which has its own language and lives mainly in the northern provinces. Activists say Mousavi’s death is likely to lead to a flare-up of inter-communal tensions both in Gilan and across the country.
Deaths in security force custody have been repeatedly documented by human rights activists, especially after years of mass demonstrations against the country’s Shiite theocracy. In the case of Mahsa Amini, United Nations investigators found that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to her death in September 2022.
