Rights Group Concerned About Fate Of Scores Of Missing Iranians

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Rights group concerned about fate of Iran missing
By JASON KEYSER Associated Press Writer


Jul 12th, 2009 | CAIRO -- An international human rights group said Sunday that an Iranian family only learned of the death of their 19-year-old son weeks after he was shot during a demonstration against the country's disputed presidential election.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said that raised concerns about the fate of what it said were dozens and possibly hundreds of other Iranians who went missing in the postelection turbulence and remain unaccounted for.

According to the official death toll given by Iranian police, at least 20 protesters and seven members of the pro-government Basij militia were killed in the unrest that followed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed June 12 re-election. It was unclear if the death revealed Sunday was counted among them.

The New York-based human rights group said the protester, Sohrab Aarabi, was shot in the chest during a demonstration on June 15.

The young man's mother went daily to the Revolutionary Court and Evin prison in Tehran's northern suburbs to demand information about her son, the group said. But only on Saturday was she referred to the police's Investigation Bureau, where she identified her son among a series of photographs of the dead.

"The lack of transparency and calculated delay in releasing the information about Aarabi's unexplained death only raises anxieties about scores of others who are among the disappeared as well as those who have been held in incommunicado detention, with no contact to family members or lawyers, many for almost a month," the group said in a statement.

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http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/world/2009/07/12/D99D55E80_ml_iran_election/index.html